Why You Should Put Yourself In Your Client’s Shoes In Your Holistic Or Spiritual Business. Common challenges many holistic business and spiritual businesses when they don’t really put themself in their client’s shoes. And miss important information that can sabotage their business success.
Putting Yourself In Your Client’s Shoes Makes You A Better Therapist
Putting yourself in your client’s shoes doesn’t just make you a better therapist, coach, or healer. It can help you become an expert in your industry.
When you can really identify your client’s biggest pain points and their daily challenges it gives you greater insight into what your ideal clients actually want and actually need.
Understanding Your Clients Helps You Create The Right Products
It helps you understand what type of content your ideal clients likely are more likely to engage with. What type of products and services they are likely to invest in? Even what type of things will encourage them to remain loyal to your business. But before you can put yourself in your client’s shoes, you need to be 100% sure who your ideal clients are, and who your soul clients are.
It’s far easier to put yourself in your client’s shoes when you are perfect for each. If you are selling courses or products you want to know you are creating the type of course and product your ideal customers will buy and truly benefit from. The more specific you are regarding your ideal audience or even better soul audience, the easier your business and marketing can be.
Questions To Help Put Yourself In Your Client’s Shoes
Why do you choose one healer or coach over another?
From my own personal experience as a client, I know why I choose one healer, therapist, or coach over another. For each challenge, I am looking for a mixture of the right skills, gifts, expertise, and training.
I know why I would invest a certain amount of money in one type of modality and on that therapist than another.
Like any consumer investment, it comes down to priorities, alignment, and resonance.
The solution that you are offering and how closely I believe you are more likely to match my expectations.
But also to me, it is important that the therapist or healer can really put themself in my shoes. Is really being authentic about their area of expertise and are honest enough with themself to know if they are the right fit for me.
Why because I spent many years investing in the wrong modalities, the wrong therapists, and healers that were not the right fit for my needs, even though they thought they were.
What Is Client Alignment?
I see a lot of spiritual business owners talk about alignment as if it’s just about the type of resonance you have with someone. But I personally know hundreds of healers, coaches, and therapists. I can feel aligned with many of them on many different levels.
But just because I like a healer or coach and feel a connection or resonance doesn’t automatically make them the right healer or therapist for that sort of issue I have.
Being aligned means a lot of different things to different people. The clearer you are about your zone of genius, your areas of expertise, and values. The easier it can be for your clients to identify if you are a perfect fit.
Clients don’t want to have to keep going around the houses to find the right person, product, or service. If possible they want to find the right person and products on their first investment.
So it’s important if you truly see yourself as a more soul-aligned business that you are able to identify your Ideal Clients and Soul Clients.
The Power Of Putting Yourself In Your Client’s Shoes
I have spent tens of thousands on my health, spiritual growth, and holistic education so after 30 years I am a lot more choosey in my purchases. My main buying decisions today are built on the results I know I am more likely to get than simply on claims that state can help, which if you put yourself in your client’s shoes can mean all sorts of things.
Having lived with very rare and serious health complications since an infant.Β I have been in the industry long enough to see things from a much wider and deeper perspective.
I don’t want to be wasting months, or years on something that may help me a little. When I could find something else that has a very high track record or a much faster track record of helping solve that issue permanently.
Like when I went to a homeopathic doctor for 5 years, that still didn’t solve the issue.Β Whilst another homeopath solved another issue I had in just over a month.
Every client, every issue has different needs. The more you truly understand your ideal client, your niche, your area of expertise, and the typical issues you help solve greatly is where you can build a more healthy and more sustainable business.
Businesses that promise or imply the world but don’t deliver eventually burn out.
Your Ideal Clients Need Evidence In Your Marketing
Put yourself in your client’s shoes, most consumers are looking for as much of a guarantee as possible that you can really help.
Your clients are looking for a solution to a problem they want to be solved.
So they want evidence in your marketing that what you actually state you can help actually match up to their expectations, claims, or desires.
The Power Of Niching, Being An Expert In One Area
In any industry that appears saturated, clients are looking for evidence and alignment.
If you put yourself in your client’s shoes you can see more clearly why they should go to you rather than someone else.
Most consumers today are sick and tired of the false promises of over-hyped marketing.
They want authenticity and often want to be treated by someone that has been in their shoes.
That is why again it makes much more sense to niche in your biggest strength, your biggest area of expertise.
The areas you can help the most, are often those challenges you have faced and overcome yourself.
Clients Need To Trust You And Your Products
Most of us come into this industry motivated totally to help others but like every industry, there is a shadow side to this industry that has grown more rapidly in recent years.
This seems to be caused by a combination of different factors which include a huge increase in poor fast-track training, too many seeing this as just a quick and easy way to make an income. Combine this with a lack of awareness, naivety, and ego, and you end up with a range of different issues that range from unsafe/harmful practices to consumers being coerced or manipulated into buying products and services that were never the right fit.
Most of us would never dream of coercing or manipulating clients to buy products that weren’t right for them. But sadly over the years, I have witnessed and personally experienced this more and more.
Resolving Clients’ Doubts And Fear
Many many years ago, I had a Degree Qualified Holistic Practitioner tell me to put an aloe vera product in my eye. Now he assured me that it was completely safe for a rare eye condition I had where I had a hole in the eye and threatened eye loss. He reassured me he had researched my eye condition thoroughly but he hadn’t. He actually didn’t listen properly and made some dangerous assumptions.
Now I was a young woman with a very serious condition that mainstream medicine could not help me with at the time. So I was vulnerable and desperate for a solution. This product dropped my eye pressure so low that my eye to have not come out of my eye socket. That was just one of many very dangerous situations I found myself in and one of the reasons I chose to take my therapist and healing training very seriously.
Many consumers come to the holistic and spiritual sector because they felt let down by the medical system, some spend thousands on the wrong therapists or modalities.
The more you can put yourself in your client’s shoes regarding any doubts or fears, and reassure them you have their best interest at heart the better.
There are so many ways you can do this but some basics include demonstrating for example, where and when you did your training and for how long,Β making sure clients know that you are fully insured, and a therapist or healer who takes your therapist CPD seriously.
Potential Customers And Clients Need Evidence
I can’t stress highly enough, how much clients value that sense of connection and trust. So they need to see evidence of that in your marketing. You can do that by sharing your ethics and values, share your guarantees. Sharing who you trained with and how long your training was can help, this is something you can blog about.
Even taking something like the reiki principles and applying them to your business ethos will help. In holistic and spiritual work we are meeting our client’s needs, not our ego’s needs.
Now if you still don’t know who your ideal clients or soul clients are. Check out my Free What is a Soul Client Course?
I totally agree with what you say Eileen π And what I know for certain is that my ideal client is ME! The content i create is what I myself need! Really enjoyed your blog.
Anna Jones recently posted…Willpower
thanks Anna your doing great keep up the great work
Great post Eileen, thank you for sharing, this really resonated with me. X
thanks Nina π
Great blog Eileen, this just confirms that I’m doing the right thing and as Anna Jones mentioned above, I too think that my ideal client is me! x
thanks Kim your work is very inspiring youve made a great start on your first blogs
Thanks Eileen for sharing your (alarming!) experiences! Sian
thanks Sian
Eileen Burns recently posted…Why You Should Put Yourself In Your Clients Shoes
So sorry you went through not so pleasant experiences, but it sounds that is a thing of the past, and you now have more experience in knowing who to choose. Connection, respect, expertise, integrity and trust are key for me whether I am the client or the coach. Thanks for sharing your story and your thoughts. I especially love your second to last paragraph where you point how clients want a sense of connection and trust, and I love that you point out how we need to come from a place of service. The well being of the client is a must!
Liliana thank you I believe these experiences made me a better therapist and coach and you sound as if your definitely coming from a place of compassion and service π
Eileen Burns recently posted…Why You Should Put Yourself In Your Clients Shoes
Hi Vern, we choose guest posting very carefully, it would have to be high quality and related to spiritual businesses