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 Mayo 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, friend, and welcome back to the Myo Life Podcast. I am very glad you are here. We've got another great topic today, and it's a big one. Where do myofunctional therapists actually get clients? If you have been trained but you feel like you were just like shouting into the void, then this one is a good waste of your time Good use of your time, not a good waste of your time. The good news is you do not need to be salesy pushy. You certainly don't need to be perfect. You just need a simple client attraction formula. Don't you love this? But first let's talk about life at the ball paradise.
Let me paint a picture for you about how I set up my calendar. So I set up my calendar each week through a process called Monday Hour One. So this was a concept taught to me years ago by Brooke Castillo of the Life Coach School. I tweaked it for my business and for my life. But here is a nutshell, also total sidebar. But if this topic interests you, like setting up your calendar, time management, all that kind of stuff if it's something that you want me to take a deeper dive in, let me know, because I'm always looking for new podcast ideas or workshop ideas, that kind of stuff. So let me know Back to that in a nutshell. So when I set up my calendar, it's quite the process.
I do not use a to-do list. I teach this in my programs. We do not do that. Instead, I use my calendar and everything that needs to get done needs a spot. So on Monday morning I brain dump everything that needs to be done and everything gets a spot on my calendar.
Once I plan my week, it's set and sewn. I do not shuffle things around. So that means, like this week when I am podcast batching, that is the plan. It is set. It's like I have an appointment. I have become a woman who honors her calendar. This means that I don't shuffle things around. This prevents me from dying of the three Ps that kill progress okay, perfectionism, people-pleasing and procrastination. I have not always been a woman who honors her calendar, so I used to move things around. If somebody asked me to do something for them and I would say sure, and then I would shuffle. Or if there was something that was going to make me uncomfortable and I didn't want to do it, I would shuffle. So I do things that are on my calendar like a robot. So I do things that are on my calendar like a robot.
So today, sadly for you, this means that I am podcasting while my sweet ornery Marine husband is preparing for a man's trip tomorrow, which cracks me up because I'm thinking shouldn't I have podcasted when he was going for a man's trip but I'm seeing clients and that wasn't going to work. So you know how that is podcasted. When he was going for a man's trip but I'm seeing clients and that wasn't going to work. So you know how that is. He's flitting around here and there, thinking he's being quiet, when actually he's not. So I apologize in advance if he decides to, you know, fire up the snowblower when it's September and we're in Alabama, but you never know with him. Or if he decides that it's a good time to just start singing in the background or whatever, because he's already forgotten that it's quiet hours and that I'm podcasting. So you never know. But you've been warned, right? So that is that. That is life at the ball paradise. He just keeps cracking me up today, but we're rolling with it.
Now the other thing is, when I plan podcasts, when I plan a topic, I like to have an intention you know, like is this useful to Sarah. Is this useful to Shelby? Sarah and Shelby are my ideal customer avatars. Remember that all of my everything that I do is written for them. So I like to have an intention, you know, are they going to find this useful? And so my intention for you today, in this podcast, is to teach you a super easy way to get clients that works, that you can keep repeating. Okay, , also, because this, uh, the client attraction formula you can start implementing it today. Okay, so there's three pieces to it. You can see here start, build, deliver. Okay, so start. We are going to start with family and friends. So if you're watching this, you see that I'm writing on the board. If you're listening, I am writing on a flip chart, so that's why. Okay, so we're going to start with family and friends. Let me get back to my notes.
This is the most obvious group and it's also the one that many myofunctional therapists skip. It's like it's a secret. Okay, this is important. The people closest to you should always be the first to know what you're doing. Okay, not a dirty little secret or a little side hustle that you're ashamed to talk about. Okay, we're not. So I mean and I'm not going to even beat up selling anything because, like I was going to say, selling Avon or whatever my mom used to do back in the day, if you're serious about your business, you have to own it, and so many people they just like they don't want to tell anybody about what they're doing.
Okay, but here is the catch. If your Aunt Judy, who's 80 years old and doesn't even have an email address, if she can't understand what you do, then you are overcomplicating it. Your job is to make myofunctional therapy sound so simple that your fifth grade son or daughter could explain it to their teacher about what you do. Okay, could explain it to their teacher about what you do. Okay, my mom helps people retrain their tongue and the face muscles so that they breathe and sleep and feel better. Okay, that's a good, clear, simple answer. Okay, no jargon.
Here's why this is going to matter to you these people, your friends and your family. They often become your very first clients or somebody that they know is going to be. Okay, these are going to be your first referral network. They can't send you anybody if they do not actually know and understand what you do. Okay, these guys need to know who it is that you help, what it is that you do and how to get people to you. Okay, you can start with that today.
Those 800 or 1,800 or 8,000 or however many friends on Facebook that you have worked so hard to have, I bet you that one or two of those has a husband who snores. I bet one or two of those has a kid who wets the bed. I bet you know 90% of them know somebody who mouth breathes. They might not be super familiar with airway ortho or tongue ties or that kind of stuff, so that's your job to educate them. But you don't jump into the deep end with them. You just let them know you know, kind of the low hanging fruit what you do, who you help and how to get somebody to you.
Okay, so, what you do, who. So I'm going to say who you want and the reason that we want to narrow that is because you want to know your who. Okay, who do you want is not people with a purse and a pulse. Who you want is your ideal customer, your easy peasy, dreamy customer. Okay, if you don't love working with children, you're going to be saying this is mouth breathing, tongue ties, whatever. Okay, tmd, who you want. So this is your who and then over here we'll write how and that's how to send them. Can they text you? Can they phone you? Do you have a business page that you can send them to? Okay, that's exactly it what you do, who you want and how to send them. Okay, so that's where you're going to start.
Next is going to be building. So you're starting with is the second piece of the client attraction formula developing referral relationships. This, this is where the mind shift. is, okay, you're not begging people to send you clients. You are working to build trust with providers that you already refer to. So this is going to be the dentist, it might be the ent, it might be the ENT, it might be ortho, chiro, physical therapy, body work, might be speech therapist. Okay, when you're doing this, when you position yourself as someone who can help their patients prepare, then you are adding massive value to their practice.
And once they see how your clients are showing up to whatever procedure so phrenectomy is the first one that comes top of mind or they see how somebody is thriving. I see this a lot with chiropractors and physical therapists. They see how their patient is thriving after going through therapy, after correcting the mouth breathing, after having the phrenectomy done. Then they want to know more. They want to know more about what I do. In fact, some of the strongest referral relationships that I have started because a provider called me up and said, wait, what are you doing with your clients? Because they are the most prepared that I have ever seen. That is how I have gotten myself on preferred provider lists. As far as phrenectomy prep, there's a handful of providers out there that I know make you pay to have a readiness check to see if your client is ready for a phrenectomy with their office, and that's how I have gotten myself to get a get out of jail free card for my clients. They don't have to spend that three or $400 to have a readiness check for somebody else to tell them that they're ready for their procedure. Okay, . So the key here is confidence. You don't need to know everything, you just need to be willing to show up and start conversations and help your clients get results. That's what's going to build your reputation.
So a funny story here I had a client who was having a release done in Washington DC with my Washington DC provider. The funny thing is is that I also had a student who I mean, what are the odds that I have a, that I had a student in that office that day observing and watching and just kind of job shadowing. And my student said to the provider well, carmen taught me blah, blah, blah, you know. And the person sitting in the chair goes my therapist's name is Carmen, and so it was so cool to get that story after the fact, because how do you think that made the doctor, the provider who has sent me you know many, many, many clients, how do you think that made her feel when she's got a student who's learning you know a new therapist on the market who's there and learning and learning things that I had taught her that this doctor loves about me and also had my patient there. It just, it still just gives me the chills Like what are the chances in Washington DC that they're all in the same place at the same time? Super small world. So that's a fun story.
Okay, so you're starting with family and friends. You can start that today. You can start building. Maybe you already have started building your referral relationships. I would say out of these referral relationships, my two biggest, most important, are these ENT is really going to be insurance driven, so people tend to want to find somebody that is in network with their insurance. Cairo and PT, body work, all of that stuff Speech, language just because I'm working globally, I don't specifically have those, but dentist and ortho Dentist, mainly for the tongue tie. Okay. So the rule in my practice is you have to be willing or I encourage you to be willing to travel up to eight hours one way and the same for ortho. I have clients in Montana that travel to Wyoming for airway ortho. So that is step two, that's build.
So this is the final part of the formula, and this is to deliver amazing client results. There is no better marketing than your clients doing the talking for you. Okay, think about it when Susie Q is at the soccer game and she's finally sleeping through the night, or her tongue tie release goes seamlessly and she's so happy because she was so prepared and it was everything she expected it to be, guess what? She's gonna tell every mom on the sidelines all about you. That's free marketing, my friend, and it is the best. That is what we want.
So here's the thing, though these clients are only going to get these results if they commit, and this is why I recommend offering therapy only in packages, not sessions. I know that's not the topic of this conversation, but I always like to throw that out there just in case. Packages create buy-in from your clients. Clients show up, they do their work, they finish therapy and then they start talking. Once your results are out there in the world, providers are going to notice as well. Okay, they're going to start hearing about you. They're going to start seeing your clients getting results. They're going to realize that you are a therapist who gets results. This is when their referrals start to come in.
I always teach my students you do not need every tom Dick and Harry to be referring to you. You need a handful of good ones. Going back to my Washington DC provider, she has in-house therapists and she still has sent me so many clients and I love that because the clients who come from her office they are already well vetted, anybody who goes to her office they see her as a specialist, so they have disposable income. They're not afraid to invest in their wellness. I absolutely love that. So that referral relationship means a lot to me and it keeps me busy. You don't need everybody referring to you.
Also, when you get amazing results for clients, you will have plenty of other doctors, or I should say you should have plenty of other doctors who reach out to you and say hey, friend, we see the kind of work you're doing and would it be okay for us to refer to you, like it happens all the time, which is amazing, which is a boon for your business. So, okay, let's recap the fancy client attraction formula. So you're going to start with your friends and family. Make sure that they know what you do in language that a fifth grader could explain, okay. Then you're going to build referral relationships with providers that you already trust, that you already send clients to. This is very likely going to be dentists and your airway-focused orthodontists Going back to referring to dentists for tongue-tied.
This is going to be an awkward conversation, especially if you haven't had it before, when you're working in a dental office and you're saying, oh, yeah, by the way, you're going to need to go, you know, like to a different county, to a different state, to a different city, and that's okay. I would always just tell people like, hey, you know, when I was still in Colorado, I would say, hey, there's one doctor in the state of Colorado that does all of my releases. That means he's good, he knows what he's doing. And I would explain to clients, like if you were referring your mother to you, know, or if I was sending your mother somewhere for a hip replacement, do you want your mom to have the hip replacement done by somebody who does one a month or 100 a month? So that's the kind of like, oh, because I used to have doctors that would say, wait, why are you sending my patients across town to somebody else for a procedure? I know how to do. And I say, well, how many do you do? How advanced are you trained? Yes, I know that everybody knows how to do a. And I say, well, how many do you do? How advanced are you trained? Yes, I know that everybody knows how to do a release, but not everybody should be doing them.
So you're going to have to sometimes step on some toes, which is why it's really important to build this relationship. And I can tell you this friend there are so many doctors out there that are looking for myofunctional therapists to refer to. It kind of blows my mind, because you would think that they could get online and research and find you, but some of them have been burned, some of them have had clients who just drag it out or not. Clients, myofunctional therapists that just drag it out, or their patients don't like, they didn't like their personality, they weren't a connection, that kind of stuff. So they're out there. They're out there waiting for you to reach out to them. So, okay, so you're going to build and then three, you're going to deliver those amazing results so that your clients and providers they can't help but talk about you.
Okay, so, if you take nothing else from today, you don't need a thousand marketing hacks. You need clarity, confidence and consistency. That is what attracts clients to you without feeling salesy. And then really, once you start applying this formula, you just make sure that you're always like rinse and repeat, always work in this formula. Okay, I think we can land this plane.
I will tell you this. If you're struggling, you have a couple options. Okay, so the Ditch Hygiene Academy is. If this is not something that you know, if, if you do not know anything about getting clients implementing myofunctional therapy, all of that kind of stuff, I would say the Ditch Hygiene Academy is where you need to go. If you just need help with earning consistent revenue, then the Myo Business Accelerator, uh, is probably good for you because it's going to help make repeatable income. You're going to earn, you're going to repeat, you're going to evaluate, , so, so, really, you've got a couple of different options. , but start this today. I would love to hear how everybody is doing. That is all I have for you today, my friend. Until next time, go build a life that you are my friend. Until next time, go build a life that you are absolutely bonkers about. And I will be back soon with more myofunctional business goodness.