So, you’ve decided to take the plunge and set up your own practice. Well done!
After considering your specific niche, you’ve also take the time to identify your ideal client. For example, professionals earning $500,000+ per year who are over 50, or busy mothers over 35 with a household income of $75,000+.
Or maybe you’ve gone one step further by narrowing your specialism even more by
choosing business executives who are over 40 and have tried (and failed) to stop smoking as your target demographic.
So with the most essential details sorted, it’s now time to move onto the next most important thing: the type of office for your practice. As believe it or not, getting this right will have a significant impact on your success.
Here’s why…
Determining Your Office Requirement
1. Your Ideal Client
What’s wrong with the below picture?
You’ve pinpointed your ideal client as being busy executives earning $500,000+ who are over the age of 50 and are suffering from stress.
They come to your office. It’s decked out in black leather and has some rap music playing in the reception. Meanwhile, you stroll in with your best gangster jeans on, your cap reversed and have a few tattoos on your neck…
I’m hamming it up to make a crucial point: Your ideal client is the most important determining factor in your new office setup.
You’re the one who decides who your ideal client will be. Put yourself in their shoes and think about the environment they would be most comfortable in.
Never forget: First impressions count in a big big way
2. Location, Location!
Now it’s time to turn your attention to your location.
By now, you should have done your research on where the best area to locate your practice is based on your demographic.
This will of course be where a high percentage of your ideal clients either live or work.
If you’re targeting executives, the likelihood of them traveling way out to outer suburbia to find you would be slim. Especially in a large city.
You’re better off locating in a downtown or business area where they can easily pop over to see you.
If you’re targeting busy mothers, the last thing they need is a trip downtown to a business district in peak rush hour. You want to locate in a suburban setting, perhaps at a local mall or professional area amongst large tracts of family housing.
Your common sense will tell you where to locate once you’ve identified your ideal clientele.
And as you become better known and word of mouth spreads about your amazing results, people will travel to see you. But in the beginning, you’ll have to go to your clients.
3. Size Requirements
Take some time to think about how much space you’re going to require.
If you’re planning on doing group therapy sessions for things like stress relief, stop smoking, weight release, or pain relief, you’ll need a larger area in addition to your small intimate space for one-on-one sessions.
If the office space you’re going to rent is expensive, and your group sessions don’t happen daily, you could also save a lot by renting a room for the day or evening of your session from a local hotel, church, sports or community center.
Again, your clientele needs to be taken into account. A business executive will expect a larger, more well appointed space than a mother or construction worker who are used to sharing spaces in closer quarters.
Use your good judgment about the size and comfort. Too small and it will feel cramped and uncomfortable, too large and it may feel intimidating.
4. Private Or Shared Space
Many alternative health centers, gyms, chiropractors and naturopaths have built their complexes to accommodate the renting of a few rooms.
When you’re just starting out in your practice, these can be a great advantage. This is because often you get a beautifully appointed waiting room, perhaps with even receptionist privileges. But best of all, you’ll also get referrals from other complementary practitioners in the complex.
In these circumstances, you’ll have your own private room or you’ll share the room with another practitioner at agreed upon times or days.
As it takes time to generate a full schedule, paying for a room on an as-used basis works really well.
You can sometimes even ask to pay a percentage of what you’ll make for the first couple of months for rent, up to the full rental amount within 3 to 6 months.
And given that these are pretty much purpose built, you may already find the room has a couple of comfortable chairs, some attractive pictures on the walls and a nice view out the window. And if not, you may decide to furnish it yourself to your own needs and tastes.
Many hypnotherapists also choose to work from home and create an office space in part of their house with a separate entrance into the workspace. An out building such as part of the garage, or an apartment above a garage can also work well.
Just be aware of your demographics – your home should be easy to access for your ideal client.
If you do choose to work from home, a word of caution: Your clients will feel much more comfortable being able to enter the therapy area from an outside entrance.
The last thing you want to do is have them walk through a house that’s messy, noisy, has dogs or cats, or cooking odors. Keep it professional.
You may also choose to go to your clients, rather than having them come to you, in which case you have no overhead. Our modern world is all about convenience.
You will of course have to count your travel time and gas, but it’s a great way to get started. All you need at their end is a quiet place with two chairs.
You can also choose to work over Skype, in which case you can work from home. This also means you need to be more sophisticated in how you advertise your services, but it’s totally doable.
5. Your Available Funds
And a hypnotherapy practice is a business, which requires all the business skills of any other business. So keep your practice affordable right from the start! By doing this you’ll never lose the joy of being a force for good in the world.
Be realistic and plan on spending the first year or two getting your hypnotherapy business established without needing too much back from it.
Is it possible to be making full-time income quickly? Possible, but it’s not the norm.
So it’s better to be strategic and plan for long-term success using tried and tested methods. If your success happens faster than expected, that’s a great bonus.
If you already have a full-time career, I recommend starting out part-time. And when your hypnotherapy business out-performs your regular job; then it’s time to look at choosing full time hypnotherapy.
If you have plenty of disposable income, good basic business and advertising skills, you may choose to cover the costs of an optimal location from the start and work your business all out.
If you’ve never had your own business, don’t know much about advertising, then please, relax and take your time.
Learn what you need to learn and keep practicing your hypnosis skills with friends, family or other students.
Make sure you set a solid foundation for your business that will grow over time.
Each week, read a book, watch a video or take a business course to fuel and increase your knowledge. You local library will also be full of free business information.
You can also find excellent hypnotherapy business resources from the Hypnosis Training Academy web articles and courses.
And last, but not least…
Once you’ve chosen your location, it’s time to furnish your office. Here are a few words from the wise on picking those all-important comfortable chairs…
- Get yourself a comfortable chair! If you’re going to sit for hours doing sessions, you don’t want discomfort distracting you from your client.
- Get your client a comfortable chair without arms. If you get them a big old lazy boy chair, they’re much more likely to go to sleep. Keep them upright in a fairly straight-backed, but comfortably padded chair.
It’s also much easier to do arm levitations, instant inductions or other phenomenon when their arms are unrestricted by the sides of the chair.
So make your new practice an adventure you’ll cherish by starting smart!