5 Things To Avoid
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL |
People often wonder what is (s)he doing that I’m not doing, or what do they know that I don’t know? How are they getting all the clients?
I don’t have all the answers, nor do I claim to, however I do have some observations and conclusions I have come to over the past 15 years of working with clients and networking with other hypnotherapists.
The first thing I have noticed is that some people are not meant to be hypnotherapists. Let’s face it folks there is a reason that I am not a brain surgeon, even though I have a great interest in the field. I don’t have the proper background. Because of all the counseling involved, just going to school to learn hypnotherapy, may not be enough, especially if there is no counseling background.
Another thing I have noticed about many hypnotherapists, is that they are often times sharing all of his/her knowledge with the client, when all theclient really wants is to get relief from the present issue, nothing more. A good therapist is able to set his/her own ego aside and let the session be about the client. Any type of talk therapist must be able to listen the client and read between the lines as to what is being said. If the therapist is talking more than the client, there is something amiss with that session.
Remember, we have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
The second thing I have realized, sadly to say, many hypnotherapist do not have enough training. Because hypnotherapy is so highly unregulated, it is possible to take a weekend class over the internet or sit in a classroom for only 100 hours an call yourself a hypnotherapist. Many of the professional organizations require their members have at least 250 – 300 classroomhours of training in addition to 15 hours of continuing education every year.
A third observation I have noticed is that even though many hypnotherapists do have at least 250 (and often time more) classroom hours they were only trained in one hypnotherapeutic modality, which goes under the assumption that one size fits all. If the client has an “Ericksonian” type personality and the therapist only knows Alchemical hypnotherapy, the therapist may not be able to support that client nor even be able to recognize why the client may not be responding.
The fourth problem hypnotherapist often encounter is that they find the profession so fascinating they want to do it all (I know I did and still do). One thing I learned early on, is to become really good, specialize, in one area first. This not to say turn down someone who wants to quit smoking if you want to specialize in working with clients who stutter.
What I am saying, is work with the smoker, and focus your marketing on stuttering. Make brochures just about hypnosis and stuttering, find stuttering support groups to speak to, call Speech language Pathologists and ask to work in conjunction with them. Once you have become “the expert” about stuttering, and you are seeing as many stuttering clients a day that you want to see, move on to another field and become an “expert” in that field.
The last thing you want to avoid is marketing trap. Most new hypnotherapists, and even many experienced ones, will put a small ad online and will have one website and then will sit back and wait for it to happen. The good news with hypnotherapy is that we get clients in, we get resolution, and we get them out. The bad news with hypnotherapy is that we get client in, we get resolution and we get them out. We don’t have the luxury that conventional talk therapists have of keeping clients around for many years. We all need to be out there marketing and networking to get several lines of referrals going. Even if you are the absolute best hypnotherapist around, if you are not marketing, I would guess you are not seeing as many clients as you would like to.
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