Myo Life

Transcript

Hey, I'm Carmen and welcome to Myo Life. That's short for my outrageous life, which is exactly the kind of life I get to live since I found the courage to ditch dental hygiene and build a life I'm bonkers about as a myofunctional therapist and entrepreneur. Here you will find all the things Myo business and how to build a life that you, too, are bonkers about. I'm very happy you're here. Shall we dive in.
Well, hello there, friend, and welcome back to the Myo Life Podcast. I am really excited that you're here, because I always say this, but we do have a great topic today. If you were watching this on video, you can see I have my trusty whiteboard out today. So if you're just listening to this on podcast, then you might hear some blank space, some extended silences, and that is why. So today we're going to be talking about the 12 principles that build a profitable myofunctional therapy business. Let's be real for a second. Building a business is not just about what booking system you're going to use or how your website looks or whether you have this perfect, beautiful Instagram grid. Okay, that stuff is surface level. The difference between the people who actually create a profitable practice and those who stay stuck, it is the principles that they operate from, because here's the truth when things feel hard and things are ugly and messy or slow which they're going to be for sure strategies alone are not going to keep you going. Okay, it's how you think, it's what you believe, it's how you show up in the middle of the disaster, in the middle of the mess that actually builds success. So today I'm going to walk you through the 12 profitable practice principles that I teach inside my programs. These are beliefs and behaviors that I come back to again and again in my own business. Okay, just because I've been doing this for a hot minute doesn't mean that I'm exempt from this stuff. These are also principles that my students lean on, or they are encouraged to lean on, when they go from stuck and scared to working with clients and creating real freedom for themselves. So let me just tell you this these aren't cute Pinterest motivational quotes. Okay, these are business building truths and if you let them, they're going to change how you operate. Okay and fast, which is good. So as I go through each one, I want you to ask yourself where do I already believe this, where am I resisting it, and what would be different in my business if this were already true for me? Okay, so let's get ready to dive in. So the first one my writing looks like I'm a kindergartner. It's actually hard to write on this.
So belief builds the bank. Okay, my friend, clients don't create money. Belief does. If you do not believe in your offer, in the value that you bring or the transformation that you provide, people are going to feel that. Okay, that's going to be that weird energy. If you don't believe it, then people are going to hesitate. Okay, they're going to ghost you. They're going to say they need to think about it, not because they don't think that they need the help and not because they can't afford it, but because you're unsure. So that comes through. I always say to my students you are a mirror to your clients. Okay, and this is an example Belief comes before the bank. Okay, belief has to show up before you get the money. Always, always, always. So that was number All right, there's no wrong way.
Just forward, my friend. You cannot mess this up. Okay. Let me say this again you can't do it wrong. This holds back so many of my students.
There is no perfect way to do all of this stuff, which this is very hard for dental hygienists because we are type A plus personalities okay, type A plus personalities, okay. We suffer from perfectionism to the nth degree. We always think that we have to have the perfect post, or the exact right script, or the exact right answer. Okay, the only wrong move, my friend, is doing nothing. Clarity comes from doing something. Clarity comes from doing something not overthinking about it. Okay, progress beats perfection. 100% of the time.
I always am telling my students you know, b plus work, b plus work, b plus work. Take ugly and perfect action, all of this stuff. Get the car out of drive. Okay, I can't help you steer a parked car. This is it. Okay? So this is number two. No wrong way, just forward.
All right, let's talk about number three, and that is to be resourceful, not confused. Boy, this is a busy, a biggie for my students. Okay, confusion is just fear. Okay, it is just fear. Wearing a different outfit. It is a way of staying stuck without admitting that you're scared.
This one happens to my students a lot, and I think some of that comes from the fact that there is so much information in the Ditch Hygiene Academy that it is easy for them to say, oh, I'm so confused, and then they just kind of throw their hands up in the air Okay, you do not need all the time in the world, you don't need perfect clarity, you need to get scrappy, my friend. Okay, resourcefulness is one of the most profitable skills that you can develop. Ask the question that you need to ask, watch the lesson, google it, try the things, use what you got. Okay, it's enough. So this is a biggie where I see this show up a lot in the Ditch Hygiene Academy is students will be confused about, say, something like tongue ties. And they will be confused about it and they'll be asking questions and I will say, have you reviewed the lesson? And the funny thing is is they won't even have watched the lesson the first time, let alone a second or a third time, to get clarity. Okay, so be resourceful.
This is a biggie, and this shows up in my own business too, because there's some things, there's advanced business things. There's. Just yesterday I was working on Google Analytics stuff and there's some things. I mean, things are updated tech updates every day, all the time, and I was in the back end of Google Analytics and I was like whoa, there's some stuff here, there's some terms I'm not familiar with. So, rather than just closing the page and saying, oh, I'm done with this, or this makes me nervous or this makes me feel uncomfortable, I got out a notebook, I opened my Trello board and I started taking some notes so that I could figure it out. Okay, so this is a biggie, be resourceful, not confused. So number four I kind of already alluded to this, which is okay because you can afford to hear it more than once.
So number four is you are a mirror to your clients. I alluded to this one previously, but this is a biggie also, and so many of my students come to me and they say, hey, I, you know, I have this concern. I have this concern that somebody is not going to pay this much for my program. Okay, however, you feel about your offer, notice, I say offer, not prices, because one thing that I teach you inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy is that you create an offer. That's the whole experience, that's the whole transformation, that's the whole enchilada how you're going to onboard your client, how you're going to support them, how they're going to communicate with you, all of those things.
The reason you have an offer and not a price is because those people who are only price shopping if they can compare apples to apples to apples, then by all means they'll do that, and then you become a commodity like corn or wheat and that goes to the lowest bidder. Okay, that's not what you want to do. You want to have an offer. So some of my students will feel like, wow, I set my prices and now, because I'm not getting any clients, they just want to burn it all down and the first thing that they want to attack is their prices. If you are hesitant about your offer, your clients are going to feel that too. If you do not believe that, then if you do not believe you're worth that value, then they're going to believe that you're not worth that value either. Okay, if you're uncertain, they're going to hesitate. If you're confident, they're going to lean in. Your energy sets the tone. Your belief creates their certainty.
Oftentimes, you know, I always say to my students well, the price to work with me is $5,000 for a year. Can everybody afford that? No, and that's okay. I don't want everybody to be able to afford that, because I don't want to work that much. I want to be able to get amazing results for, you know, a smaller number of amazing clients. I want to work with one $5,000 client and not five $1,000 clients. That's more work, that's more effort, that's more expenditure on my end. Okay. So, with that said, when somebody asks my prices, here's my prices. I own it a hundred percent. I don't even wince when I say it. When you think about a dentist and they say the price of a crown is $1,800, they don't say that it's $1,800 and then kind of duck away and wince no, they own it. Here's the price. If you don't like it, then you'll have to go somewhere else.
Okay, so that was number four. You are a mirror to your clients. That's a big one. If you tackle that one in your business, it's really going to be helpful. Number five start scrappy, stay strategic. Hopefully I'm spelling all this right. You don't need a perfect website. You don't need a polished anything. You don't need a perfect logo, polished, beautiful logo, all of that stuff. You don't need a thousand dollar bookkeeping system to get started. You need to start. Okay, sell before it's pretty, book clients before you feel like you're fully ready. Start scrappy and then improve as you go. That's how real businesses are built.
Again, inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy, I teach you the concept of an MVP, minimum, viable program. That means we do the minimum to get the doors open so that you can start getting money. Most of you people are in the Ditch Hygiene Academy for a reason because you have this dream to ditch hygiene, work less, earn more, be in total control of your calendar and be able to work from anywhere. So you kind of can't do that in the laboratory. So the whole purpose of being in that program and paying for my expertise is so that you can earn some money and do that quickly. So we start scrappy and we stay strategic.
So in that MVP, you are not perfecting everything. You don't have a beautiful, perfect website. You get through stage one, which is the meat and potatoes of the program, where you're going to learn about what myo is, what orophacial myofunctional disorders are, how you identify them, how you determine that somebody needs that therapy, how you plan therapy, how you present it, how you try and get them to say, yes, I need your help, yes, I want to pay you for your expertise. That is all in stage one. So you're doing that minimum stuff and then you are rocking and rolling. You're continuing to raise your hand saying, hey, I can help you Meanwhile over here, you're then circling back around, you're working on that website, you're building your social media, you're building your online marketing, you might be building your email list, all of those things.
But you don't do all of those things at once, and the reason being is because what you need, your minimum viable program is you need people who are saying, hey, I need your help. You need, you know, a few things in place, like your business stuff, a way to get paid, and kits. Okay, so very simple stuff. You don't need a lot of tech, you don't need a ton of setup, all that stuff. So you're going to start scrappy, okay, and the nice thing with that is it allows you to bootstrap your business, which is what I did. I didn't have any debt when I started my business. I mean what I did. I didn't have any debt when I started my business. I mean, I already had a computer so I was good to go. Okay, number six Messy action wins.
You already heard me say ugly and perfect action. you don't have to be, you don't have to feel 100 ready and, spoiler alert, you're not gonna feel 100 ready. Okay, waiting for confidence before you act is like waiting to get in shape before you go to the gym. Okay, it doesn't work. Messy action builds clarity. Messy action builds confidence. It's a muscle. Messy action builds clarity. Messy action builds confidence. It's a muscle. Messy action builds momentum. The people that you admire, they just started. They didn't get it perfect. Ask me why I say this Same here. Okay so messy action. And that's definitely messy action inside both the Ditch Hygiene Academy as well as the Myo Business Accelerator.
That's part of the decide and do process. Like you, we don't spend a ton of time spinning our wheels making decisions. We, you make the decision, take ugly and perfect action. The thing is is after you make a decision and you just start messy and you just start doing stuff A. That's where you're going to get clarity. You're going to get data that's going to tell you hey, was this the right decision? Was this the wrong decision? You're going to evaluate what worked, what didn't work and what do I want to do differently, and then you're going to take more messy action. So that is a biggie. Seven, yes, this is a biggie for students as well. Trust the process before the proof.
Now I will tell you this. This, this is, this is an honest struggle for students, because here I have students in the program. They have, of course, done some research, they know about myofunctional therapy, they hear about how amazing it is, all of that stuff, but they don't have the proof. They don't know that this works. And I had a student one day who said Carmen, where I'm really struggling is that I have Susie Q and I know she needs my help because of the four goals of myofunctional therapy correct tongue posture, correct mouth posture nasal breathing is the predominant method of breathing and then swallow, correct and normalize. So, out of those four goals, you know, say, susie Q was a mouth breather, she had open mouth, resting posture and a low postured tongue, and then therefore we know she didn't swallow correctly, so she needed all four goals.
So my student was like I just have such a hard time here. I'm telling her my price is $3,000 to work with me for a year, but I just haven't seen the process. I also haven't seen the proof. And so this is great, because most people want proof before they believe. Okay, but entrepreneurs, which is what you are, if you're a business owner, you have to flip that. You have to believe first and then let the proof come along.
When I started my business, I had zero proof that it would work, okay, zero proof that anybody would pay me, zero proof that I could run a global business from my laptop. But I trusted in the process. I borrowed belief from those who had gone before me and the proof came after that. That is exactly how this works. So I tell students all the time so, yes, trust in the process. I also say this to clients too Trust in the process. Yes, you don't have to see the whole staircase, you just have to see the next step. Okay, but for students, trust in the process. I've done this thousands of times. You're good, borrow my confidence if you have to. All right, number eight Ooh, bringing the fire.
Bringing the fire, you don't. You don't find time. You make it, you make it. Oh, how many of you just felt that in your gut, right? If you are waiting for more time to magically appear, let me lovingly tell you that the time fairy, the time genie, is not coming. Okay, ain't nobody rubbing a lamp around here to get more hours in the day? You don't find time. You make it, you block it. Okay, this is what it looks like on my calendar. It's a block of time and it's called tiger time, and you will find that on my calendar tiger time, and you will find that on my calendar it is blocked. I protect this time like my income depends on it. It does. It actually does.
You do not build your business in the scraps of what you have available. Okay, you build your business in the hours that you decide to claim. Now, one thing that I do say a lot in my marketing, in my messaging and when I'm doing connection calls with people is that you can absolutely do this. If you have just three to five hours per week, okay. Now, if you have 10 hours per week, you're obviously going to get more done. Okay Now, if you have 10 hours per week, you're obviously going to get more done. Okay Now, finding those hours per week, that is a whole nother conversation about finding you're enough, figuring out what your bottom line is. But let's just say you have three to five hours a week to dedicate to this. Those three to five hours a week are going to disappear if you are not blocking them on your calendar.
If you're not saying tiger time, if you're not saying husband, you're going to put the children to bed because I have work. If you're not saying husband, on Saturday morning, can you take Johnny to soccer because I have work, okay, you don't find the time you make it. I think I've made that perfectly clear. Okay, what's the next one? Let me look at my notes. Number nine focus beats frenzy. Okay. So when you're doing everything, that means you're basically doing nothing. Well, or you're not doing anything to completion.
You want to be working on your essential priorities, or you know, I say one to three, and you have to stick with these longer than it feels comfortable. You have to resist the urge to jump ship. Every time something feels hard. You have to be willing to say, hey, this sucks, this is uncomfortable for me but I'm going to, as my business mentor said, olivia says I'm going to gag and go. Yep, I'm going to feel whatever I'm feeling and I'm going to just go. Okay, having that frenzied energy, that frenetic energy, that is fake progress. Okay, focus is where momentum happens now and if you listen to any sort of like motivational podcast, that kind of stuff, it'll always tell you where focus goes, energy flows. Where focus goes, money goes. All of that stuff is so true. So focus Also. Going back to that box of tiger time Also, you know what this also is on my calendar. Also, you know what this also is on my calendar Focused time. It's bright yellow. It's as important on my calendar as if I was going to the doctor.
Okay, oh, number 10. I love this one. I love this one because I bet you I say this 20 times a week. Number 10 principle is boundaries build businesses. Oh, my goodness.
So when I talked about us dental hygienists being type A plus personalities and we suffer from perfectionism. Well, there's also a couple other P words that we suffer from as well Procrastination, and some of that comes from because we are scared. We're dental hygienists, so we already are good at what we do, we have already excelled, we've already done hard things. We have evidence, we have that license, we have evidence that we have accomplished something. So starting something new in a career that you don't have evidence that you're awesome at is hard. So perfectionism is one thing that we suffer from, but the other one is being a people pleaser. So if you're a people pleaser, how do you think boundaries build businesses plays into your life?
I hear this, I'm telling you multiple times a week and I am constantly telling students. Every time they tell me well, I didn't get as far as I wanted to get because life got in the way. My friend, every life got in the way. Issue is typically just the boundary problem. Okay, unless we had an emergency, a sick kid, a sick parent, you know something like that. That is not what I'm talking about here. But when you're saying, yeah, I was just doing other things, life got in the way, that's a boundary problem.
Boundaries are not about restriction, they're about results. Every single time that you say yes to the wrong thing, you are saying no to the right one. Okay, and the right one for me is freedom. Yes, it says the dollar sign, but that but life is bought, my friend. So that freedom, that dollar, you need that dollar to work less, earn more, be in total control of your calendar. If I want to take three weeks off in December, guess what? I need money the rest of the year to be able to do that. So boundaries is about results. Protect your boundaries, protect your priorities. That is how you grow your business. And of course, you got to know that your friend here has you covered in the Ditch Hygiene Academy with a full lesson on boundaries called Boundaries that Don't Budge. Okay, so this is a good principle too.
Simple creates success. Ask me how I know this. Complexity doesn't make you more credible. It doesn't make things necessarily even better. Okay, simplicity makes you money. Keep your offer simple, keep your message simple, keep your system simple. Simple gets things done. Okay, and done is what builds momentum.
In my business, I have kind of seen the pendulum swing one way and then back the other. I started very simple in my business and then I made a lot of money. So I tried all the gadgets, I bought all the things, I bought all the softwares. I did all of that stuff and the funny thing is is now the pendulum has come back the other way, where I'm just all about simplicity. I, yes, I love this office that has my beautiful lighting. Yes, I have my two computer screens, which is really a luxury. I love it, but I can absolutely just work off of my laptop. Okay, I can sit down on the front patio and just work without having to have all of this stuff. So simple create success. And the funny thing is is those expenses that I have spent. Now they're coming down, okay. So, just cause I was, I was just spending money dumb, I was just spending it dumb. Okay, keep it simple, stupid right. Simple create success, right, simple creates success, all right.
The 12th principle Be a business owner, not a hobbyist. Ooh, that one kind of stings. Hobbyists dabble. Okay, business owners decide, hobbyists wait and business owners lead. If you want to do this work, then you have got to step up, like the business owner that you are, especially when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's inconvenient, especially when your brain is screaming at you to procrastinate. Okay, you're scared, stay here Out there doing that uncomfortable thing is scary. This is a biggie because so many what I'm seeing with a lot of myofunctional therapy business owners is they just have an expensive hobby. They have this knowledge. They're afraid to raise their prices. They're afraid to charge any sort of real fee for their services, considering that they're an expert and they're just playing. They're just dabbling. Expert and they're just playing. They're just dabbling. They're not deciding on growing their business. They're just kind of bobbing along, which is totally okay if that's what you want to have.
But I again go. It goes back to my favorite sign, the dollar sign. My favorite sign, the dollar sign. It's all about freedom for me, and the freedom for me to be able to do what I do and live a life that I'm bonkers about means I have to operate as a business owner and think like a business owner. So that's the thing is, sometimes I have to tell students okay, right now you're thinking like this, but you want to think about owning a business, okay, and that also plays in when I have students who want to grow their business, but they also don't want to tell anybody about their business. It's like they have a dirty little secret. So you got to let people know also what you do.
So let me go back and review the 12 principles. Okay, and now remember, at the very beginning I said ask yourself where do I already believe this? Where am I resisting this? So the resistance is a biggie. I typically see that with the belief. I typically see that with the boundaries. Okay, so where do I already believe this? Where do I am I resisting this? And what would be different in my business if this were true for me? Okay, so let's go over those 12 principles again.
Belief builds the bank. Okay, you have to have belief. Clients don't create your money. Belief does. Number two there's no wrong way, my friend, just forward. Number three be resourceful, not confused. You will hear me say this time and time again. I say it in live coaching, I say it in the lessons you have to choose not to be confused. I had a student just the other day say I was starting to feel so confused and overwhelmed, but then I remembered those are a choice. Okay, I choose to believe that I am resourceful and I have evidence that I can do hard things, and so I will. Okay. Number four you are a mirror to your clients If you've got some crazy stuff going on up in your cabeza. You got to get over that, because I'm going to make you get over it. You have to feel confident about your offer so that people know that you're worth it. Okay, again, going back to this program, you might've heard me say that time and time again, this program, the Ditch Hygiene Academy, is two or three times, maybe four times.
You know, when I have students that are paying me $12,000 for the Done For you program, they invest $12,000 with me. That is much higher than other programs out there on the market. And you know what? Can everybody afford it? No, and that's $12,000 with me. That is much higher than other programs out there on the market. And you know what? Can everybody afford it? No, and that's okay. I believe in the value of the program. I know the value of it. Okay, you're welcome to do something else. but I am a mirror to my clients. So when I have students that are worried about if their clients are going to pay it, you know when I tell people like, hey, you paid a good amount of money to get educated, you have to believe that the value is there.
Number five start scrappy, stay strategic. Okay, we're going to start simple. That's actually a later one, but same thing, you're going to start scrappy. You don't need to have everything perfect because you're going to do messy action wins, okay. So that's number six messy action wins.
Number seven trust the process before the proof Borrow. If you need confidence in the process or what your business and myofunctional therapy can do for people, you can borrow it from me. Number eight you don't find time, you make it. Number nine focus beats frenzy. Number 10, boundaries build businesses, baby. Okay. Number 11, simple creates success.
Number 12, the final one be a business owner, not a hobbyist. I can guarantee you hobbyists aren't in the Ditch Hygiene Academy. So there you have it the 12 principles that build a profitable myofunctional therapy business. I'm pretty sure that's why you're here. These are not just ideas. These are foundations that I come back to time and time again and they are woven into everything that I teach and coach on. Here's the deal. If you are listening to this in real time, we are in the final days of enrollment for the Ditch Hygiene Academy. This is your chance to stop thinking about leaving hygiene and starting your business and actually do it with training and mentorship and the community that's going to walk with you through every step. Okay, if you're listening to this in real time. Also, the one time a year that we offer the supported September sprint, this is just that final push in the last quarter of the year to get you through that stage.
One, the meat and potatoes. What is Myo? How do we present it? Blah, blah, blah, all of those things so that come January, you are ready for your first paying client. Okay, that means you have extra support from me and my team. So if you have been waiting for a sign to do this, this is it. Don't miss your shot. This is it. Don't miss your shot. That is it, my friend. That is all I have for you today. Until I'm back next time, go build a life that you are bonkers about, and if you're not on Ditch Hygiene Academy yet, go do that too. Get enrolled. I will be back soon with more myofunctional business goodness.