Every time I teach the Create a Thriving Practice course, new insights occur. I’m approaching the second class of the current 6-week webinar and I’m at the point where I’m helping everyone craft a focus for their practice so they can attract their ideal clients. How? By exploring the greatest lessons they’ve experienced in their own life.
I’m always amazed at the profound wisdom that people acquire on their journey through life and the incredible upheaval they’ve been able to transform. They’ve completed a tremendous amount of personal work and understand so much about the mythic journey that we’re all on.
And yet, some of these advanced souls are mystified by business. Even one of my key mentors and teachers – who is extremely advanced – recently exclaimed, “I just don’t think I understand business.”
In one of my favorite scenes from The Wolf of Wall Street, the main character says to a group of his employees, “Sell me this pen.”
One of the guys then stumbles through an answer about the pen.
When he asks the second person the question, “Sell me this pen”, he replies,
“Do me a favor a write your name down.”
“I can’t, I don’t have a pen.” The main character replies.
“Well, here you go! (Tosses him the pen). Supply and demand, my friend.”
It occurred to me this morning, in the simplest of terms, what business actually is. Reduced to its most plain language, business is simply…
Fulfilling a need.
That’s all it is.
Yet, most healers and practitioners seem to forget this when build their websites or talk about what they do. They often position themselves and their offerings as “a good idea” instead of something that fulfills a need. I’ve seen some beautiful practitioner websites that explain things like the chakra system and “dreaming the world into being”. Yet, for most people, it all sounds like “a good idea”, not something that’s indispensible. It’s a service that seems worthwhile, but something that, “I’ll do a little later when I have some spare money”. If you’re a healer looking to build a practice, this simply won’t work.
So business is fulfilling a need.
Like the movie, another way of saying that is: “Supply and Demand.”
But it occurred to me that it’s actually more appropriate to think of it as Demand and Supply.
What’s the demand that people are asking for?
Where are they experiencing pain?
What’s their need?
What would they demand of you?
Then how can you supply it?
How can you position your services as meeting and fulfilling their demand: the need that they have for your services?
Do that one thing correctly and you’ll never have to worry about having enough clients.
Do that one thing well and you won’t have to work another day in your life.
It would simply be about doing what you love to those that NEED what you can offer.
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