Furious? Don’t get me started!
I had already prepared a blog for today but then something happened last night to make me really cross!
You will often hear me joking about Osteopaths wearing their invisibility cloaks and not being seen in their communities. However, for several years now I’ve been banging the drum for Osteopathy generally as well as helping hundreds of worldwide Osteopaths to improve their marketing. Those Clients who get on and implement the agreed strategies go on to increase their patient lists – sometimes dramatically.
However, there are many more Osteopaths who are not busy. They are not treating many patients. They are not marketing themselves at all.
Last night I was contacted by a virtual friend who runs a charity called HemiChat for parents of children who have had a stroke, like my son Toby. Over 400 babies and children suffer a stroke ever year in the UK. This charity is an invaluable resource because there is very little help and advice for these little ones. Parents are often left to get on and cope with their children’s challenging behaviour, cerebral palsy, hemiplegia, distonia and/or regular and distressing episodes of fitting.
I will often go into the Facebook support group and offer to find suitable Osteopaths for anyone who will give this valuable treatment a try. I search for ‘cranial osteopath in Bromsgrove’ or wherever. Looking through the results, I recommend the one who seems the most suitable from what I see there.
So last night my friend began a Messenger conversation with me and one of her own friends who was at her wits end. She has a one year old who is miserable, upset, screaming and who goes ballistic when someone new attempts to touch him. I was all ears!
Unnecessary suffering in children makes me furious!
I was intrigued to know a little more about his history and wondered about a traumatic birth. Her words were desperate as she clung to the hope that maybe I could help her to find a solution. It was late and I intended to find her an Osteopath this morning but the pain in her words invaded me and I swung into action.
And this is where I got cross. Website results in her locality which were so poor that I saw red! Websites all about WHAT Osteopathy was and not HOW it would benefit the potential patient! Worse, there were no Practitioners to be seen. A website is a virtual shop window and we need to be able to look inside and see who you are and what you’ve got for us!
Website after website I looked at for this lady and time and again there were NO PEOPLE to see. My Clients hear me bang on about this all the time – PEOPLE BUY PEOPLE!
If I irritate you, then you will never want to work with me. But if I inspire you, then you will know I’m the best fit for you. You will look at my photo and you will read my words and testimonials and you will decide that I’m the right person to help you grow your patient list. But if I write stiff ‘professional’ and boring blogs without character and if my website is devoid of any clues as to who I actually am – will you choose to hand over your hard earned cash to work with me? Highly unlikely!
I am massively proud of my Osteos!
In my online courses, we have a private Facebook group where we share our work, encourage and support each other and ask questions. I am constantly encouraging them to ‘come out’ and show their terrific personalities in their online marketing. The ones who are going for it, stepping outside their comfort zones and broadcasting HOW they can help their community, are doing fantastically well. They are demonstrating stretches for the desk bound, they are showing how to warm up before exercise and they are explaining how Osteopathy is a great treatment for unsettled babies.
So back to my distraught new online friend. I sent her off to YouTube to watch the amazing Lin Bridgeford demonstrating treatment on a baby born with the cord around his neck. He was unhappy to let her anywhere near it but gradually she gained his trust and she treated the little guy. Lin is so engaging that I would drive a thousand miles to take my baby to her.
I continued to search for a suitable Osteopath. Then she typed in how lovely the baby video was, how she would give anything to see her boy smile again and I could feel the tears in her typing. She said how he had never been the same since the car accident…
Oh my goodness!
I quickly searched again. There were many Osteopaths in this lady’s area. She had never heard about this treatment and she had no idea that it might help her little one. This is what makes me furious! We are all in small businesses and it is OUR responsibility to ensure that our own communities know what we do and how we can help. There is so much marketing that we can do that doesn’t cost a penny.
And this is what I say all the time:
If we are not getting the word out about how Osteopathy can help our neighbours in pain, then we are doing them a DISSERVICE!
Did you know that you’ve got just 3-5 seconds to capture the attention of a website visitor?
With Osteopathy being a relatively intimate treatment, there needs to be a fairly high level of trust gained before someone new will book an appointment. If your website is not allowing people to see you and to understand how you might help them, then it is likely that they will go back to their search results and choose another type of therapist instead. Read that again!
The websites I visited last night were very poor indeed. In many instances there were no pictures of smiling and friendly looking Practitioners. There was no clue as to any specialisms and information was difficult to find amongst all the waffle.
In the end I found the perfect lady to help the little guy. Mum will have to drive to the next town for treatment but I am totally sure that she will soon have her precious little boy back.
