The only way to avoid the “feast or famine” experience which drags many therapists down is to spend enough time working “on” your business. Above all, this means having a plan for future sales and marketing activities!

While there are a myriad of ways to reach your target audience, there are six ways – besides traditional word of mouth - that have all been proven to guarantee your success. However, be aware that it’s always sensible to “pilot” your ideas before blowing all your hard earned cash. Before anything else, it’s vital that decide on your target market. Many therapists make the mistake of thinking that they can help everyone – with the result that they end up helping no-one. When you specialize – by offering what you do to a specific market sector – other people perceive you as an expert. This makes you more attractive!

Many business development experts talk about the necessity of creating a sales funnel. This means having a system in place for getting yourself in front of as many potential clients as possible – knowing that not all of them will convert into clients.

Advertising: As some wag once said – “Advertising works 50% of the time. The trick is to work out which 50%”. As with direct mail, it’s important to test and benchmark your activities. Think of your target audience – what publications do they read, where do they go – who do they talk to? Work out the answers to these key questions – and of course decide on your budget - and it’ll be simple to plan an advertising campaign.

Public Relations: With PR, you can get yourself publicity in the newspapers – providing that you have a good story! The benefit is that it’s much cheaper than advertising – but the downside is that you do need to make more of an effort. As well as general news stories, you can also consider writing expert columns – which may not only be of interest to the print media but there are also loads of websites – like www.expertarticles.com, which can help you raise your credibility.

Public Speaking: Never underestimate the power of seminars and workshops for highlighting how you can help your target audience. Local community groups are always keen to find fresh speakers – and it’s a great way to hone your skills. Remember to have a mechanism in place for collecting the names and addresses of your audiences. One easy way to do this is to offer a small prize at the end of your talk – with the winner being the person whose business card is pulled out of the hat! In this way, you can build up your database pretty swiftly.

Direct Mail: While direct mail can be effective, it can also be a very fast way to lose money. The industry rule of thumb is that – providing the campaign is carefully targeted – you can expect that for every 100 pieces that are mailed, 10 people will express interest and 1 person will buy. Using this formula, to get 10 new clients, you’d need to send direct mail to 1000 targeted clients. Be aware that direct mail needs not only to be very well designed, but also very carefully written if it’s to be effective.

Website: Even if you don’t have a fancy website, it’s always good to have some kind of web presence. Even a one-page site is better than nothing. Think of your site as an on-line brochure – while potential clients may not actually buy directly from it, they’ll be reassured that you take yourself seriously enough to have a website. - Ezine & Blog: Perhaps even more important than a website is an ezine (electronic newsletter). An ezine allows you to keep in contact with all your past, existing and future clients at very little cost. Of course, you must invite people to subscribe – rather than simply bombard them with spam and even more importantly, if you want to retain readers, ensure that you include articles which are both relevant and valuable. While an ezine allows you to be pro-active when it comes to contacting your clients, a blog (web-log – similar to an online diary) allows you to explore your thoughts and voice opinions – and get feedback from your readership. This can be particularly useful if you’re thinking about launching a new product or service.

Understand that you’ll make better use of your promotional budget if you’ve first decided upon your target audience. Work out your promotional budget before getting carried away with different marketing activities. Know that one of the keys to long term business sustainability is being able to build up a database of people who’ve already shown interest in your product or service.

Test, test and test again! Never blow your whole budget on one campaign. Use your first marketing piece as a benchmark and then tweak it – one thing at a time (headlines, body copy, pictures etc). If the second campaign is more successful than the first, make this into your benchmark – and then keep on testing! Recognize that marketing takes time – time to create and time to bear fruit. In an ideal world, your marketing activities should take up about 50% of your time. (And knowing that, you might need to adjust your fees to take account of all the time you’re not actually earning money.)