By Emilia Farrace, Founder of Simply Elaborate Agency

There’s a movement happening. People are getting healthy; they’re researching food and supplements. They’re meditating, practicing yoga, and figuring out their life of balance. You can probably Google any sort of lifestyle, and find someone selling it as the best lifestyle of them all to anyone who is ready and willing to buy it.

If you’re truly in your profession to help others solve their problems, the amount of inaccurate information available to the general public may aggravate you and leave you wanting when figuring out what should be the core of your business.

So, why are you different from the people spewing inaccurate information? Why is what you are offering going to help solve the issues at hand for your potential patient – for good? What is your focus? Expertise? What interests you the most in your profession?

Focusing on your passion, uniqueness and personality is the key to your client base.

Anyone with a degree/diploma/certification in your profession can serve those looking for someone in your profession. This is a no brainer. They can choose anyone that’s within their desired location and price range – but you know which practitioner they’ll go with? The one they like, the one they resonate with, the practitioner that seems to understand them – the most.

Use your passion to develop who it is that you want to work with. You ideal patient doesn’t have to be someone who is exactly like you – but it should be someone who will work well with someone like you. So who is that?

If you don’t know whom you want to work with, they won’t either.

Yon can ask yourself some questions to help you figure out your ideal patient that you want to work with, here are some starters:

• What patient in my past was my favourite and why? (If you’re new and haven’t had any patients, answer this question as if you’re dreaming up your favourite patient. Think in terms of what their problem/issue was and why being able to create a solution for the problem was your favourite)
• Did the problem they had challenge me to find a solution or was it simple? Did I like that it was [challenging or simple]?
• Did I learn something about my profession I liked and wanted to know more about when dealing with this patient?

After answering these questions, something should come up, that’s repeated or focused on. This is most likely your passion and something you specifically love about your practice. Focus on it, develop it, ask yourself the age-old Who What Where When How questions about it and generate some ideas on why this would really make you stand out from other practitioners in your field.

Find people who you’ll work well with and grow your client base.

Delving deeper into the above questions, really cultivate the feelings behind who you want to work with and how they make you feel while working with them. Thinking in terms of where the patient is in their life, for instance: Is the patient cynical to your profession? Do you love the challenge of building trust within your service to patients who are perhaps coming to you as a “last resort” in regards to their health? Or, are you someone who would rather not have to prove your service to your patient, and they are willing to hear what you have to say with acceptance?

If you don’t think your uniqueness is worthy of a business, then neither will anyone else.

The easiest route to failure is not recognizing where your strengths lie and how that is the key to your success. The thing that makes you unique is also going to be the reason people choose to use you as their practitioner to solve their problems.

You need to be able to create trust between yourself and the potential patient without even meeting them yet – so your personality and uniqueness should be the forefront of all your marketing ventures.

Get out of your own head about what others think and just do it – it will form your business.

Do not fall into the “I’m not worthy” trap that we often get into when it comes to talking about ourselves and promoting ourselves and focusing on what others are judging about us.

NOTE: These people are not the ones judging – you are. You need to trust yourself and your services because that’s what people need to see.

Confidence, you have it. Expertise, you have it. Knowledge, you have it.

Now showcase it.

Take action and create a strategy around your new business.

You’re almost there when it comes to creating the bare bones of your business. The ideal patient is the first step and the next one is creating the strategy to attract that ideal patient.

So let’s recap:

• Who/what is your favourite?
• Did the situation challenge you and did you like that?
• Did I learn something new and did that make me want to do more?

With the answers, grab your free five-step questionnaire (you can print it after for posting inspiration later on!) to fill out that will help you to create your brand strategy for your holistic business – this questionnaire will work for both online and offline based businesses.

Here is the link: http://eepurl.com/bg8l-f

About the Author

For this straight-talkin’ creative dynamo, running the show with equal parts determination and style (and sometimes while doing a handstand) comes naturally. When she founded Simply Elaborate back in 2009, her dream was to create a new kind of agency—one that pulled together a rainbow of creatively-minded individuals with big ideas to boot. In no time flat, her passionate venture spiraled into a full-tilt agency that cultivated oodles of meaningful relationships and one-of-a-kind business partnerships.