by Craig Weiner, DC, EFT TRN-3
As EFT Universe trainers, Alina Frank and I have instructed and mentored hundreds of EFT students as they progressed through the certification process. The curriculum is thorough, the practical experience is rigorous, and the exams test knowledge. All this is as it should be, so the result is quality EFT practitioners who have gained the skills needed and can feel confident in their abilities.
That being said, a skillful practitioner is not necessarily a skillful businessperson. Individuals are exposed to tapping through a variety of experiences, often witnessing profound transformation and healings. Those events can be so powerful that they make the choice to devote their lives to EFT and begin a new career, brimming with excitement and passion. If, however, they have no entrepreneurial skills or have never run a business or a private practice before, they can easily become overwhelmed by the need to wear multiple job description hats.
New practitioners may be novices in the technology and marketing skills that are so helpful in growing an EFT practice. There is an endless learning curve for understanding website creation and search engine optimization (SEO), blogging skills, social media marketing, and creating tele-classes or online products. Emotional challenges often emerge ranging from anxiety related to charging clients for the first time for services to the fear of public speaking or even the tongue-tying process of describing what you do when someone asks.
When someone asks what you do, what do you say? Do you offer something like “EFT is emotional acupuncture without needles,” which leaves them with that quizzical look? Do you do your best to describe acupoint stimulation as reducing amygdala hijacking only to have them say, “That’s great,” and then change the conversation topic?
I will offer a secret that makes this big question far easier to answer and much more likely to create new clients. It is what we tell our EFT business students from day 1 of their training. When you develop your business niche, your response will become simple and engaging.
Try this experiment: Ask the next 100 strangers you meet: “Do you know what EFT is?” Of course, the response will vary with the demographics of your community. While the recognition is growing by leaps and bounds, my experience is still that under 10% say ‘yes.’ So when someone asks my friend Jean what he does and he says he is a plumber, 100% nod their head in recognition. I would estimate that there are far fewer taxidermists than there are EFT practitioners, yet many more people will understand the former over the latter. So what is there to do?
Within the polite 20 seconds you get to respond to the question regarding what you do, you can try to explain or EFT or you can develop your practice niche and respond like this: “What do I do? I help women who have been recently divorced find their confidence and self-worth to create the relationship of their dreams!” Or “I help first-time authors who are stuck move quickly through their writer’s block to complete their dream book project!” Or “I’m a coach who works with individuals with dental fears get over their worry so they can feel excited about having healthy teeth again!”
You may notice a few things about this. First, there is no need to explain from the get-go “the EFT tool.” If the person is a good client fit, then he or she will truly be interested in a deeper conversation in which you can offer a more in-depth explanation as to how you would help achieve that goal. Even if the individual is not an ideal client fit, he or she will more than likely immediately think of a distinct person who would be. When you respond to the question by saying that you do EFT, it is unlikely that your listener will think of someone who needs you.
Now you might think, “Oh goodness, why would I want to limit my clients to a limited number of interested potential clients when I am just starting out? Shouldn’t I keep my practice open to everyone?” The irony is that by being a generalist to everyone you are a specialist to no one, and that is likely to have your client calendar awfully quiet. Dental fears affect nearly 20% of the population, and in the United States that’s 68 million people. With divorce running around 50% in America…well, you do the math. As heartbreaking as it is, people take action when they are suffering. People will pay for services when they are hurting; that is when they search and ask for help.
That’s where you come in. Developing your niche is the single most important skill I can teach a practitioner to implement in order to have a successful EFT practice.
You might think, “Do I really only want to work with people with dental fears?” The reality is that the issue that someone complains of is usually only the starting point and you may find yourself working with any number of different issues. In sessions, a client may clear a long-standing fear of dogs after being bitten as a child. That client works at an animal shelter and refers all her coworkers, none of whom have dental fears.
Finally, as the number of EFT practitioners grows and they are out there marketing themselves, you are going to need to stand out. Being an authority in a particular arena makes you the expert, and people want to find the expert to help them with what they are suffering from. Shouldn’t that be you?
Craig Weiner and Alina Frank are EFT Universe trainers and directors of the EFT Marketing and Business Academy, an EFT practitioner’s business acceleration program. EFTMBA.com
