Interview with holistic business consultant Joanna Sapir on Episode #59 of the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast.

This week I’m talking with business strategist Joanna Sapir.

Joanna works with holistic entrepreneurs (including plenty of acupuncturists) to help us set up structures and programs in our businesses that create more freedom for us, the practitioners.

In this episode we dig in and talk about her unique way of helping wellness providers set up treatment programs that not only better support the patients, but also generate regular monthly income and stability.

It’s much more than creating a package or a membership. Joanna walks me through her process and we have a great time discussing the details.

This conversation gave me some really helpful insights about the setup of my cosmetic acupuncture package at my office, and how I could change it to improve patient retention and compliance, and probably increase the price!

I’m in for that!

We also discuss how solo practitioners can use this approach to go on vacation and still make income while they’re away, and much more.

Buckle up for this fun interview and some radical but effective new ideas!

Show Notes:

🎙️ Listen to Episode #59: What if You Could Go On Vacation and Still Get Paid? With Joanna Sapir

Subscribe to the Acupuncture Marketing School podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify

 💖 Love the podcast? Help other acupuncturists find the podcast by leaving a review here.

Transcript:

[MICHELLE GRASEK] (00:04)

Welcome to the Acupuncture Marketing School Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Grasek, and I’m here to help you get visible in your community, take marketing action with confidence and get more patients in your practice and more money in your pocket every week. We both know you’re a talented, passionate acupuncturist and that acupuncture has the power to change lives. So let’s dive right into this episode and talk about how you can reach more patients.

(00:28)

Welcome back. This week I’m talking with Joanna Sapir, who is a business strategist for holistic practitioners. Joanna’s special skill is helping wellness providers set up systems and structures in their practices so that they can get more long-term patients and create steady income and we cover so much ground in this interview. I really think you’re going to enjoy it. One of the things that we talk about in depth is how you can go on vacation as a solo practitioner and not lose money, in fact, how you can continue to make money while you are away. We also talk about things like the difference between marketing and sales, and of course, why neither has to feel gross and both should really be thought of as relationship building and so much more.

(01:22)

Without further ado, let’s dive in. I give you Joanna Sapir. Hi Joanna. How are you?

[JOANNA SAPIR] (01:28)

Good, Michelle. I’m looking forward to settling in and talking to you today.

[MICHELLE] (01:33)

Thank you so much for being here. I was so excited to find your website. You are a holistic business coach, and I would love if you talked a little bit about your background, because I think your background is really interesting.

[JOANNA] (01:47)

Well, I will reveal my age so that there’s a little explanation there. I turned 49 in a few weeks, so I think of this as like the third phase of my life. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, I imagine many people have where you run in these cycles. So I really had a calling at a young age coming out of college to teach to be a teacher. Very specifically, I wanted to teach high school history and that’s what I did and over the years began teaching teachers how to teach and did a lot of curriculum design and a lot of, yeah, teacher education as well as being in the classroom. I pretty much never, I never thought that I would do anything different, that really was what I was meant to do and then some major life transitions happened.

(02:38)

I had a really traumatic birth of my second son, I split up with the father of my kids and life just shifted and I found that my priorities shifted as well as far as taking care of myself. I think I actually learned that I had to take care of myself and once I started doing that, I was led in a different direction. I actually didn’t think I was leaving teaching, and I’ll spare the details, but I ended up teaching in a different capacity. I ended up opening a strength and conditioning gym, which never in a million years did I expect to do. I never, nobody in my family is in business and I surely was not somebody who was like, I want to be an entrepreneur and start my own business. That was not in the slightest bit led by that it was that I had in this massive change I went through in my life.

(03:31)

I up and left my hometown and everyone I knew in every place I knew, and I moved to a new county and there was no place to do the fitness training that I had found as part of that rebirth of myself and it had become so essential to my life, and I knew it could change other people’s lives too. So I just thought, well, this is needed. I need to create this here. So I started this business with no background in business whatsoever, which I think is really, really common amongst wellness practitioners, we get into business and we don’t think about it as getting into business. We think about it as practicing this craft that we know can change lives and help people transform, but we find ourselves apparently running a business.

[MICHELLE] (04:27)

Like, oh, funny, how did this happen?

[JOANNA] (04:30)

And we don’t know how to do that. So I had to learn, I had to learn how to do that. I think I actually fell in love with aspects of it, I think very much reminded me of my strengths as a teacher in terms of design of a business, a design of the whole picture and as I started to learn how to do this, which by the way, I had, I figured out I had to learn through some major struggles, that I’m sure we can talk about as we, as we get into this. But I found that I actually really enjoyed stepping into leadership of my business, not just being this, the fitness coach or whatever it is, the strength coach. I actually really enjoyed the idea of, as I learned the idea of stepping into leadership of my business, and I started to have a vision for, well, what am I doing with this thing?

(05:26)

I realized that I just wanted it to exist. I didn’t feel that I needed to be the person always teaching, working with the clients. I just wanted them, I wanted my community to have this service and I also recognized that I didn’t have to be the one providing that, that there could even be people better than me that I could potentially bring in. So I decided I’m going to build something that can run without me and that I can sell if I want to. That is what I said about doing and that’s what I did. And by the time I decided to sell it, which was 2017, I had already started doing what I do now, on the side, just feeling the waters, which was helping specifically wellness practitioners. And because I had been the client of so many wonderful practitioners, naturopaths, body workers, all these people, because my own health was such a priority, my own wellness.

(06:28)

I saw that so many of them were just amazing at their prac, amazing practitioners, and yet their businesses didn’t show it. It was like, they might be struggling financially. Some of them, their own health was in decline, some of them burnout. I think the financial piece was really apparent. I could tell often that I wasn’t even being charged enough and sometimes I wasn’t even being served at the level that I knew that they could be working with me at. I knew that they had those skills, but the way they had, the way they were delivering their services was just not optimized to truly get me the results that I knew they could help me get and so I just, I saw this need there, and I knew I wanted to help in that direction and that’s what I now do, is help wellness practitioners with business structure and system so the level of their business success can match their high level of practitioner work.

[MICHELLE] (07:34)

Yes. I really love that you, I even love the way that you said it, that you set about building a business that could run without you and that you could sell and that was your specific goal. Because I think in order to do that, you really do have to think about the systems and the structure so that you could hand it off to someone else in a seamless way. Because that’s a big motivator for someone wanting to purchase a business. It’s already operating very smoothly and they can just step into your space. I know in acupuncture, that is not something that we think about very often. I was speaking to another guest recently and she described that concept as like preparing to leave a legacy through your business.

(08:18)

Some people want that and some people don’t but one way to leave a legacy is to set up these systems so that there’s like this beautiful operational structure that you can step back from if you want to either in retirement or practicing part-time and allow someone else to come in and help you. I think that’s so brilliant, but it does require a lot of forethought and it’s just very uncommon in the acupuncture world because we’re the practitioner and we’re very much in it. We are the business but I think that, I don’t know, I think it’s healthy to share responsibility with other people in a business. It’s hard when you are the only person and you foresee being the only person until the day you retire. That’s a lot.

[JOANNA] (09:05)

Yes, there’s a lot in there that I’d love to poke at.

[MICHELLE] (09:10)

Unpack it all.

[JOANNA] (09:11)

I mean, first of all, nobody needs to, anybody listening, if you’re listening and you think, I never would want to sell my business, that’s not what it’s about. I want to be working with the clients. Like, you don’t have to want that. However, what I would hope that every practitioner would plan for is the ability to step away. We’re talking about sometimes that’s with things that were really unforeseen, like a serious illness. It could be our own, it could be a parent, an aging parent, it could be a young child, people who you’re responsible for caring for. That ability to care for the child, the parent yourself, whatever and your business is going to be okay and not completely not exist is something I think folks should plan for. And how about a wonderful vacation every year, like a month-long vacation even or multiple smaller vacations where business doesn’t stop just because you’re not seeing clients?

[MICHELLE] (10:18)

You’re singing my song

[JOANNA] (10:19)

So it’s not even just selling it and I think the big hurdle we need to get over is understanding that it’s not just about us. It really isn’t about us. We think our clients love us because it’s us. Yes, you still get to lead the business, you still get to interact with your clients if that’s what you want to, and so on, but the fact is you have a way that you do things and if you can codify that way that you do things that makes you great at what you do, you can codify that and teach that to others. I guess that really relates to what I mentioned earlier, that I began teaching teachers in my career. It’s like I wanted other teachers to be better at what they were doing. What our ultimate goal is for, in the case of teaching, it’s for our students to be engaged and lit up and empowered with their education and with our clients in wellness, we want them to be healing and growing and progressing. And that does not, it’s pretty egotistical to think that we’re the only one that can do that, but we do have special ways that we work with our clients and special perspectives, and you can make that your way and it becomes the way of the business.

[MICHELLE] (11:47)

Yes, I’m at the phase in my business where I’m thinking about releasing a job opening on indeed.com for an acupuncture associate. I had this initial struggle because I practiced a specific style of cosmetic acupuncture, and it occurred to me that I can find practitioners to help me who are really exceptional, people who are better than me at providing acupuncture. I actually found it liberating because then it meant that all of the pressure was not on me to please every patient, every time for the rest of my career. Like, people are allowed to come in and help me, and they are going to be wonderful. They’re going to be delightful, and people are going to really like them. So that was such a good feeling.

[JOANNA] (12:36)

Yes, that’s amazing. That’s exactly right as you started to feel what that will feel like. I don’t know if you’ve hired somebody yet. It takes some time, it takes time to onboard people and train people, but yes, that is the truth, is that, it’s like the two heads are better than one, the three hands, four hands are better than two. It’s like, we can really serve our clients at higher and higher levels when it’s not just us even and you absolutely can find people that are better than you in certain ways. The key there is that they still are coming in, I don’t want to use the word under. I don’t mean to make it like a hierarchical thing, but they are your employees and you do teach them, this is the way we do things. This is our framework. And they may bring different education and different skills, and they can become collaborators, but in the long run, they might be collaborating in what your frameworks are. But to begin, in the very least, like you have a way, it’s not like they’re just coming in and doing whatever they want. Here’s the way we serve our clients, and yeah, the amount of freedom that gives you then to lead your business really. I don’t think we came on here to talk about like, scaling with staff, but here we are.

[MICHELLE] (14:00)

Yes. I’m really curious, how do you talk to solo practitioners about that ability to take a month off and go on vacation? Or what structures are they putting in place to prepare for those unforeseen events, which I think do happen to everyone in the course of their lifetime? Like, there is going to be a reason at some point where you cannot go to work for a couple weeks, or you need a big shift so that you are available to take care of an aging parent or something like that.

[JOANNA] (14:27)

Yeah, sure, I can talk about those structures. I will note that the vast majority of my clients, of the people practitioners I work with are solo practitioners. When they start with me anyway. The longer they’re with me, the more likely they are to bring in some help. But still many people are, been with me for years and are still totally solo. I’d say the key structures are around well, probably the number one thing is around how we basically change their business model a little bit, remodel their services. And one of the hallmarks of what I do with clients is help them programatize their services. That a one way to phrase it. So it is moving away from a session by session approach. It’s no longer selling sessions or packs of sessions, and instead designing a journey or a container or a program, those are different ways to conceptualize it that is going to take the client in front of you from where they are now to where they want to be, or at least a first step of where they want, a first phase of that journey.

(15:44)

That means that when your clients are enrolling with you, they’re no longer, as I said, buying a session. Instead, they’re going through a really wonderful sales process that makes sure that they’re the right fit and an assessment process that’s really identifying like what’s going on with them. So you, as the practitioner can identify like, what are the root causes here? That assessment process might involve quite a bit of conversation. It might involve some manual assessments. I mean, you could probably tell me as an acupuncturist the various ways that you would assess that, but you’re assessing where they’re at so that you can design a way to think of, it might be a treatment plan, and your clients are enrolling, they’re committing to that treatment plan from the very beginning.

(16:35)

So I think what we usually see amongst practitioners is that they may, in their head have a plan, but that’s not ever really expressed. It’s like, they might say, I think you should come in for weekly sessions for the next 10 weeks or something, but it’s still left up to the client to, like, they have to book the sessions. And they come in, the client comes in and the practitioner is still going, how are you doing today, and treating it like a, what’s going on right now, rather than necessarily carrying out that whole plan, because it’s just only in their head, in the back of things, like, this is what I want to do. So we actually formalize all that into these plans. So to get back to your question of like, how do you take a few weeks off even as a solo practitioner, this is just very practically speaking, when your clients have enrolled in programs, let’s say they’ve, or treatment plan, and let’s say the treatment plan is, I’m just making this up, but let’s say it’s 12 weeks long and there’s one session they’re coming in for each week, and maybe there’s some homework and stuff they have to do, and there might be some other stuff outside of the sessions maybe, they’re on an automatic payment plan.

(17:55)

This is no longer like, they’re coming in, getting charged when the session is done. They’re getting charged monthly, let’s say. So 12 weeks, that would be three months, so it’s a certain amount each month that billing happens at the beginning of the month. That’s what they’ve already agreed to. I want to note that this eliminates cancellations, because when people are paying for it, they show up, I mean, if they’re already paying for it, so they show up and the payments happen. Again, this is very practically speaking, the payments are going to happen whether the session happens or not. Again, it does because they come in, but if you had a two-week vacation in there, the payments are going to happen no matter what. In the case of a solo practitioner, they still have to deliver the sessions from the two weeks they were gone, but payment doesn’t stop.

(18:45)

So it’s like you’re still getting paid on vacation. Again, this is a solo practitioner, there’s a little catch up at the end, but if we’re talking about a little bit more advanced, you honestly could potentially even have a sub. I know that’s probably sort of crazy to think of, but just opening our minds into possibilities. You could even have a sub and it could be somebody who’s not, for example, an acupuncturist, but it could be some practitioner where their skillset you know would benefit this person. So that could even happen while you’re gone if you wanted to do it that way. Those are some possibilities where the income, you’re still getting paid while you’re gone. This is, as a solo practitioner. Obviously, if you have a staff, you get to step away and your clients are being served no matter what.

[MICHELLE] (19:34)

Yes, I think the idea of having that financial buffer would be really appealing to people and it is so much easier to bring in a sub if you know for sure that the money is going to be there to pay them. You already know like, okay, there’s 20 people and the money’s going to come in, so we need 20 treatments. You know the sub is going to make X percentage of that, but the money is happening. I think that’s also a great way to convince someone to sub for you, is to be like, okay, this is how much money you’re going to make. I think it’s hard for us to think outside the box sometimes, but there are really wonderful options.

[JOANNA] (20:20)

Yep, totally. The foundation of that is, like I said, the clients have committed to a whole program that they’re in. I just want to know, like that approach is so much deeper than just the financial aspect of it. I think a lot of times, I’ve had practitioners hear that and they’re like, oh yeah, like a pack of sessions. I just want to be really clear, this is not at all arbitrary. It’s not like a made-up pack of sessions. And a lot of times the way the packs of sessions are sold, they’re sold because they’re considered a discount, like, you can buy one session, or if you get 10, there’s a discount. This is not that at all what I’m talking about. This is like a carefully designed journey designed to get your client the very best results possible. It’s where you get to actually talk to them about what is this plan? What are we going to be doing? You get to talk to them about how what you are actually doing is trying to get to the root cause, not just treat the symptoms. Because they come in and they’re just like, I got these symptoms, deal with the symptoms. And you get to explain as part of the enrollment process, here’s what it’s actually going to take to address these symptoms and address the root cause of what’s creating them so that we can get rid of this and move on to whatever the next piece you need to work on is.

[MICHELLE] (21:52)

I love that you mentioned that in these programs, there’s usually homework because that’s really, it’s a big part of Chinese medicine, is lifestyle and diet that really can enhance your treatment outcomes. But it can be difficult to get people on board with you if they just come for knee pain and you’re like, well, this and this would really make a big difference, but they aren’t mentally prepared for that. They’re like, oh, that’s not what I’m here for. But when someone signs up for a package like this, I’m sure they can see on the landing page like, these are the many things that are involved for this purpose. Are there things like, what would people commonly include? Is it adding nutritional counseling or is it things like having maybe prerecorded educational videos that you ask people to watch depending on where they are? Because I could see people doing this, especially for things like digestion and regulating the period. There’s so much to teach people about that. So like, there could be lots of homework that you’re asking them to do, and it could be a very comprehensive program in many different ways.

[JOANNA] (23:02)

Yes. Everything you said, any and all or none, it is really, when I am working with a practitioner, I lead them through a series of exercises, but ultimately I’m not even making, maybe I might make suggestions sometimes, but like, this is not about what we think people will want. It’s about what we believe as a practitioner these people need. So it really is going to be based on your background, what you believe your client, these clients need to get the ultimate result that they’re after. So if nutrition is part of that and you’re like, I really want to address nutrition with these folks because I know it’s going to be transformational for them, then it’s up to you to figure out how to do it. I help with all kinds of tool. I have all kinds of tools to share, but it’s up to you whether that’s something that’s a live class you teach or it’s online curriculum that they’re watching, or whether you have actually some nutrition coach that’s part of your program.

[MICHELLE] (24:17)

Ooh, I love that.

[JOANNA] (24:18)

Yes, so I help with the creative process, but ultimately, it’s yours as a practitioner to create. I’ll also just note something. A lot of times people hear this and they get excited by it, and then they think, I need to design, oh, I want to do that, and they think I need to design this amazing bells and whistles like thing. I just want to know, like, you can start trying this with your next client and just pull together what you can as you’re working on it with them. You don’t need to like, let’s just say the idea of having some video instruction or audio instruction, some lessons outside of some content outside of their sessions with you. You don’t have to create all that ahead of time. You can get your first client that you’re enrolling in this process and you can start creating it just for them and then you just have that recording and then you just, I mean, and you don’t even need fancy software. You can stick it in your Google Drive or Dropbox or whatever your online storage is and just, you can start out really simple.

(25:28)

In fact, we don’t want to get fancy and systematize things until we know they work. We want to validate them first, and it takes a while. I was mentioning I was a teacher and really specialized in curriculum design and when I was writing new curriculum, if I was teaching a new class, as a high school teacher you might have three sections of the same class. So you get the opportunity to teach, let’s say it’s a lesson or a unit three times in a row, like in a day, which is great. Still, even each time you do it, you’re making it a little better. Each time you teach it, you’re making it a little better. Then I always felt like it was my third year of teaching a class where I finally was like, okay, this is it, like this is the publishable curriculum now. So you just keep reiterating and making it better and better until you’re like, this is solid. This is it. That’s when you really systematize everything.

[MICHELLE] (26:24)

Yes, it’s almost like the idea of beta testing an online course before you put a ton of time and money and energy into it. Because I think it is a really common almost trap that people fall into that they design this beautiful class in their head and they’re thinking it’s exactly what people want and need and they spend a lot of time and maybe pay for professional videography and everything and then they publish it and they realize that it’s not quite hitting the mark. I think the home video beta test version on just a couple people in the beginning really is the way to go. Because I don’t think most of our patients are expecting us to have video editing skills or to make an investment in a professional videographer.

[JOANNA] (27:14)

Oh, they don’t care at all.

[MICHELLE] (27:16)

Right, especially if you’re like, I’m learning this process and I’m trying to figure out what would be the most helpful for you in these videos, but I am creating it for you. People would be amazed by that. They would be like, yeah, “Anything you want to teach me and put together, that’s really cool.”

[JOANNA] (27:33)

Yep. And then you have your audience right there, you know who you’re talking to and, yes, so anyway, just encouragement that this does not need to be all fancy ahead of time or anything like that. It’s really about what do, I mean, you do want to plan out, to create a program you do want to do some planning, but it doesn’t have to be like all made and done. This really is all about what you believe your people need, most of all.

[MICHELLE] (28:02)

Yes. And you also teach people not just how to put together those programs, but also how to market them. Is this correct, how to have almost a funnel to get the people who are the right fit, like to self-select in based on, I would imagine like the words that you’re using and the marketing angle that you take?

[JOANNA] (28:24)

Yeah, I sure don’t call it a funnel.

[MICHELLE] (28:28)

It didn’t feel alright.

[JOANNA] (28:28)

I mean, I think of funnels as like, very much out of digital marketing and it’s like the person lands on this page and then they fill out this, and then they go to this page and dah, dah, dah and it’s like this —

[MICHELLE] (28:41)

They get this email and then they get this email

[JOANNA] (28:43)

It’s funny because even, as I say that out loud, it’s like, yeah, I totally teach people how to do all that, but I don’t conceptualize it as a funnel. What matters here very much is your sales system is what I would call it, your sales process or your sales system. If you listening are like, I don’t even know what that is or what that means, you’re in like a hundred percent of the wellness practitioner population, it’s like, not something we know what that even means or what it is. I mean, a sales system or a sales process is basically like, when, how is a purchase made? Like how is the, think about it as the moment money is exchanged. When does that happen? The way most practitioners do this is I mean, I speak with so many, so there’s the folks who have, you can book a session on their website, so there’s the folks who, you go to their website, website, and they might even have all these different kinds of sessions.

(29:43)

You were mentioning gua sha before, there might be gua sha and the acupuncture and the this and the that and somehow the client or prospective client is supposed to decide what session they’re going to buy, which is really antithetical to the model that I’m talking about, where we are actually assessing their needs and enrolling them in a treatment plan that is specifically to get them the results they want. So they’re not choosing what they’re getting, you are recommending the pathway for them. So that’s one way as people have the book a session thing or people have the just the contact form on the website. I have many stories. It’s where I go ranting. I’m not going to take your time with it, but I have many stories of myself as a client trying to inquire about services with practitioners where I just end up in this run around where there’s texting involved and there’s, they’re trying to get me on the phone, but they’re asking me, when are you free?

(30:46)

It’s like the real, like that is a complete lack of sales process. So if you find yourself doing the, somebody reaches out and you’re doing this back and forth, like maybe trying to ask them a couple questions and then asking them when they’re free, that is your attempt at a sales process. What I just want to say is like, we want this to be really clear and streamlined for your perspective clients and what we want to do is build into, I think about it as a series of stepping stones, where it’s really clear to me, if I get to your website, somebody recommends you, I get to your website, whatever it is, everything is really clear like, okay, here’s the first step for you to take. It’s all so consensually based in that way. If you are telling me, you do your thing, and then you say, the first step is this, it’s like, I get to choose to take that step. When I take that step, you do whatever your bit is, which I’ll talk about in a second, and then you offer me the next step. So I’m being led through these, these stepping stones are being revealed to me and I’m walking on them and through that process, become a client. So most of us are just totally missing this.

(31:58)

If you are programatized, if you’re offering programs and treatment plans, it is essential to have a sales process. I mean, I can talk about what those steps look like, but maybe I’ll just back up for a second and note that marketing and sales are two different things. That’s another just really common that most of us don’t recognize that. So if I can define that for a second, a lot of times we think marketing is how I put myself out there. I need to get out there and talk about my services so that people will become clients. Well, let’s just take off the back half of that and say, yes, marketing is definitely getting visible and attracting an audience, attracting people but sales is when you start to invite them to take steps with you. And a lot of us smush that together. We don’t recognize the difference so we try to sell our services in our marketing. We’re basically being like, here I am, here’s my services, buy this now.

(32:59)

That I would, what I would say is that is following a industrial marketing, like mainstream marketing and even product-based marketing approach. We are inundated with billboards, flyers, advertisements that come in the mail, all of the selling products and selling mass produced products. That’s how it’s presented to us is it’s like an ad. The ad is, here’s the thing, and here’s like the sale on the thing and come buy the thing. So we see that we think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing and that’s just not what we, first of all, as a service-based business, that’s not what we want to be doing and then as wellness practitioners, that’s not what we want to be doing. We want to be building relationships with people and making sure they’re the right fit for our services before ever inviting them to take a step. We don’t want to sell to strangers. We want to make sure that this is the right person for us.

(34:04)

So in our marketing, we’re calling out to who those people are, and we’re talking about them, not about ourselves. We’re not saying, here’s my thing that you might want to buy. We’re talking to them about what they may be struggling with, what their goals are that they haven’t been able to reach. What wrong pathways have they gone down? I mean, in the case of acupuncture, I know for all the practitioners I work with, that their clients often have tried a sort of more allopathic medicine approach to certain things that are going on, and it hasn’t gotten them anywhere. Sometimes it’s been a very negative experience. Or they’ve been told they need surgery and they’re like, that’s not what I want to do. So there’s all these things. You speak to those issues, you speak to what’s going on with them to call them in, and then you invite them to a next step.

(34:53)

That begins to get them into your sales pipeline for being really formal about it. It starts, in my sales system, I call it the predictable sales system. The first invitation is to a free consultation. So the free consultation has steps where you are filtering them in a way. So if you’re an in-person practitioner, like an acupuncturist with an office, you’re actually seeing people in person. Usually, that first consultation is a phone consultation. So this is like a really easy thing for somebody to say yes to. You can have it, it’s like the call to action that’s on your website, or if somebody emails you, you say, great, well, the first step is to schedule a 15-minute phone consultation. In that phone consultation, what you’re doing is you are, as I said, filtering them, so it’s a red velvet rope policy. You’re making sure that this person is actually somebody that you can help and that you want to help, and you’re qualifying them on things like budget, on time, commitment, et cetera.

(35:59)

That’s a brief conversation and it is not where you’re, you’re not “making a sale” there. All you’re doing is qualifying them and making sure, yes, this is somebody who I will invite to the next step. So the next step is an in-person assessment of some sort. When I’m working with clients, we design that assessment process, and this is the core of the consultative sales piece. What’s cool about it is when you hear the word sales, you think, oh, I’m supposed to be convincing people, and how do I get them to buy the thing? It’s not like that at all. This is truly where you get to connect with the person, legitimately do an assessment and legitimately lay out for them what their treatment plan would be. Let’s say, even if they didn’t, well, I’ll just say this, in in-person consultations like this, the number of people that go into, that buy, that invest in the program is 80% to 100%. I mean, it’s just a huge, huge conversion rate. But let’s say even if they didn’t, they’re still walking away with you having explained, like you mentioned nutrition before. It’s like you’re actually saying, here’s what’s going to be needed to deal with that is this acupuncture, and this is what we’d be doing.

(37:18)

I mean, it’d be really cool for acupuncturists to actually explain like, I don’t know enough about this, but like, I would want to address these meridians. Does that language make sense? Because here’s what I perceive is going on so I’d want to address this and this, and once we get through that phase, then we go to this phase. I also would want to see some changes to your diet based on what you told me. Here’s what I think would need to be eliminated, and here’s some things that we’d want to bring in whatever it is. So they’re even getting the plan no matter what, whether they become your client or not. That’s very empowering for them to be told here’s what you need, here’s what you need to solve this problem. But then it also becomes a no-brainer for them to go great, you can help me with this. You’re like, yeah, that’s what I’m here to do.

[MICHELLE] (38:06)

I’m processing all of this through a cosmetic acupuncture lens and thinking about my practice. We have a free consultation option, but I’m thinking like, ooh, I could make it so much better.

[JOANNA] (38:19)

Yes. So that’s actually somewhat common that I see that people have an optional consultation. In the system, as I teach it, every single person has a consultation no matter what, even if it’s your mom or your sister. Because the key to understand here is the consultation is not about, as I said “convincing them.” Like, you may have somebody that you already know. They already know they’re going to be doing it. This is almost like what sometimes people say is like, sometimes people tell me, well, our first appointment is this full assessment and intake process. I’m like, okay, so we’re actually pulling that, we’re pulling a lot of that out and putting it into the consultation. So it’s a deep connection point. It’s really where you’re establishing trust and safety. You’re setting the container, is what you’re doing, you’re setting the container for what your work will be together. It’s so much more than the money aspect.

[MICHELLE] (39:25)

Yes, as I am thinking about it, the only time when people don’t do a consultation for cosmetic is when they’re already my patients and I feel like, it’s what you were saying earlier where I’m like, okay, in my mind, this is how cosmetic acupuncture works. It’s two treatments a week, four or five weeks, and without that specific container of the consultation where I give my spiel and then I look at their skin and we talk about what would this be like, if I just start my regular patients on a cosmetic protocol, it’s a little wishy-washy for them because I’m assuming, oh, we’ve discussed this over the years and you’re familiar with it. But sometimes they’ll be at treatment seven and be like, well, what happens next? We go to treatment 10. What part of this did we not discuss this? I’m like, oh, wait, we did not sit down for half an hour and walk through all this whereas someone who’s brand new to me, or like relatively new to the practice, I will make them do that. It’s so much more clear cut and then I also have a much better, I get their buy-in for the lifestyle changes because they tell them in the beginning. Like you’re saying these are the things that would need to be changed or that I would expect, and it’s 50% my work and 50% your work and if they’re not into that, then they self-select out in the beginning

[JOANNA] (40:42)

Exactly. So when you, that was a question that came up before about how, or something you brought up before about how people don’t realize, like they show up and they don’t realize that’s going to be part of it, but in the sales process, they’re getting fully educated and, I was going to use the word indoctrinated. I don’t know if that’s the right thing, but fully immersed in like, this is what the process is and they are consenting. It’s, you’re going to do this. As far as things like the time commitment and the money commitment and so on, like I said, that happens in the prequalification. so you’re not even having the assessment consultation process. Unless somebody has already indicated, yes, I can afford this, and yes, I’m willing to commit this time if I decide to do it.

[MICHELLE] (41:33)

Actually, I really like that because there are plenty of people who come to a cosmetic consult who realize how much it costs, and they’re so interested for 20 minutes, and then we have that discussion and they’re like, wow, I’m out. Then I’m like, shoot, we just spent a long time talking in person

[JOANNA] (41:49)

Yeah, right.

[MICHELLE] (41:49)

And maybe they didn’t need to drive to me. If we had that conversation over the phone first, that would be more efficient all around.

[JOANNA] (41:57)

It’s the predictable sales system, yes.

[MICHELLE] (42:00)

So is this, I think this is your, is this your five-step system for more clients.

[JOANNA] (42:05)

Yes.

[MICHELLE] (42:05)

Okay, I saw that on your website. So that would be what, step one and two?

[JOANNA] (42:10)

Yeah, step one is, the step one is, I call it the invitation. So it’s your first invitation to some consultation. Step two is actually the red velvet rope. So that’s the actual conversation, the pre-qualifying that you’re doing. Step three is a bit hidden. So this is like when I, mentioned, so let’s say prospect schedules a phone consultation with you, you have that pre-qualifying conversation, they qualify to you, so you invite them to schedule, to come in for this in-person assessment and they say yes and you schedule that. Between the time that you hang up the phone and their call, you send them a series of nurturing emails that prepare them, prime them and prepare them for what’s going to happen in that consultation and for your program, your system, your way of doing things love.

(43:09)

For example, if you were including nutrition and diet, you are not going to say to them, I’m going to, if you work with me, I’m going to require that you change your diet. We’re not trying to scare them, but you can give them a little education about, let’s just say certain foods and how they create inflammation and how eliminating those foods can drastically eliminate certain inflammation in your body or whatever. Just some simple, like simple belief shifts or simple pieces of knowledge that are going to help them prime and prep them for that consultation and what’s going to happen there. So I call that the prime and prep campaign. That’s the step after that. Then step four is the actual in-person assessment. When you’re enrolling them, that’s the actual enrollment process and conversation, and then the fifth step is onboarding. That’s, I always think of that as like now somebody’s truly in our inner circle, and how do we make them feel like now they’re on the inside, like a big hug.

(44:10)

And just like all the as I was saying with program design, that really gets to come from the practitioner that gets to come from you too It’s like, how do I want my new clients to feel and how do I want to make them know that, show them that they made a great choice. So there’s all kinds of ways to do that. But for an in-person business, I love even having a little swag bag when somebody has just committed and made the, and you have just collected, so just a reminder to go back to where we had been earlier in our conversation about payments. It’s in that in-person assessment when they say, yes, I want to do this. You’re getting their card, their payment info, and you’re setting it up for automatic payments. That’s the only time you ever have to do anything money-wise. You are no longer, you’re saving so much time in your office because you’re no longer collecting payments ever at sessions. It’s all done automatically. So you’re setting up, let’s just say it’s a monthly payment plan for three months, or you mentioned yours is five weeks, so maybe it’s one just pay in full or maybe it’s twice over the five weeks, however you want to do it. But that’s done, one and done, and now it’s set up automatically. So anyway, a nice little swag bag of some sort. Your onboarding might include, it might include some emails for the first, if yours is five weeks, it might be an email each week that’s talking about their progress. You can do this automated, like what they may be feeling, stuff like that. So there’s all kinds of things you can do for nice onboarding to welcome somebody into your practice.

[MICHELLE] (45:49)

And I think the onboarding also, in addition to the fact that you already swiped their credit card, so they’re paying, so you are assuming they’re going to show. But even without that, I think the onboarding is really nice for actually getting people to show up for their first appointment because it’s not, what if they aren’t coming for like three weeks? You don’t want their enthusiasm to wane. Instead, you are making them feel like a member of your inner circle, you know, “We’re looking forward to seeing you, so don’t ghost us.”

[JOANNA] (46:19)

Yeah. Well, one thing a lot of my clients do is depending, like when you said yours is five weeks, they would schedule all those sessions outright. After payment is made as part of the onboarding, they would schedule those all out to begin with, already done. A lot of people do that even for longer. I mean, I have people who have like six-month and year-long programs and a lot of people they’ll decide with the client right there, is it the second and fourth Thursday of every month that we’re seeing each other or whatever, creating their rhythm. So that can get set up there. Then of course, yes, there’s all those logistical things like an email that gets sent to them with all the links they’ll need to know or how to reschedule if they need to, how to communicate with me best, just the basic stuff too.

[MICHELLE] (47:03)

I feel really excited just thinking about how I could make my whole process of cosmetic acupuncture better for my, for people who sign up. I feel like everyone listening to this probably also feels excited because I know from my personal experience as a practitioner, but also from working with so many other acupuncturists that we just love this medicine so much and we just get all those really yummy good feels when we’re thinking about how can I create this beautiful process that’s really going to help someone. Then to have someone like you to build out that structure and be like, okay, maybe in this spot you need an email that is a reminder or that teaches them about what collagen does in the skin, or like how vitamin C interacts and reminds them to drink their collagen, all of that to me is very exciting.

[JOANNA] (47:48)

Yes. Yay, I’m glad. I feel it too. I feel with every single person I work with, I get so excited for what they offer their clients. It is so exciting.

[MICHELLE] (47:59)

Well, I have one more question for you, and it is, what is your definition of success?

[JOANNA] (48:07)

It’s such a good question. It’s a really good question because I always say, I mean, at the beginning of this episode when I was talking about how I wanted to sell the business, and I decided I had wanted to sell my gym, and I was trying to note like, not everybody wants that? And that’s the thing is everyone’s definition of success is their own. For me, I think it’s fairly simple, it’s two pieces. I imagine you’re talking about business success or no, it’s just success in life.

[MICHELLE] (48:36)

I guess it could be either success in life, assuming that like your business will fit into that in some way.

[JOANNA] (48:37)

I think it’s easier for me to just think about business. Number one is that it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want to with my time. That’s just essential to me. So I love the creative, the creativity in the work that I do. So I love my work. It’s not that I don’t want to work. I love my work and I love lying in the sun, and I love working out and I love spending time with my kids. I want the freedom to be able to choose however I want to use my time. That’s really number one. Then number two is financially, I am financially driven. I’ve been a single mom for 20 years, like the sole support of my kids and I absolutely want to make as much money as I need for taking my kids on trips, for travel, for myself, for paying for wonderful wellness services that I get to take care of myself with. So those are the two pieces, the freedom of time and the ample income so that I can live the life I want to.

[MICHELLE] (50:00)

Thank you. I also really appreciate both of those angles. Someday I’m going to take a poll and ask how many entrepreneurs feel that freedom of their time is their number one asset, because it allows them that balance to pursue the things that they love outside of their work. I don’t know how it’d create a poll, but I would also want to ask, and how much does that balance outside your work feed back into your work? It’s a beautiful system for most entrepreneurs I think

[JOANNA] (50:29)

A hundred percent right, yes.

[MICHELLE] (50:33)

Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it and I am glad to feel excited about systems in a way that I am usually not. I would imagine that most people who come to you are like, oh gosh, I’m here because this is going to be so much work and I can’t do it alone, but to feel like it’s going to be interesting and fun to put together the whole process for the patients that you love, I think that’s just a really good feeling.

[JOANNA] (51:00)

Yes, I’m glad, I’m glad you’re feeling that and I hope that you listening are feeling it too.

[MICHELLE] (51:06)

So where can we find you online?

[JOANNA] (51:09)

My website is joannasapir.com. I imagine you’ll have a link, but for those of you just listening, it’s J-O-A-N-N-A, my first name, my last name is spelled S like Sam, A-P, P like Paul, I-R, joannasapir.com. I have a podcast and it’s called The Business (R)Evolution for Practitioners, the Business (R)Evolution for Practitioners with Joanna Sapir. And we have a free gift for your listeners, which is really awesome training in these systems that I’ve talked about and actually going a bit into some more depth on how they all, how it all fits together. You can get that at joannasapir.com/ams for Acupuncture Marketing School, joannasapir.com/ams.

[MICHELLE] (52:04)

Well, thank you again so much. I really appreciate it.

[JOANNA] (54:05)

Yeah, it was really fun talking to you, Michelle.