Marketing and Practice Building for Hypnotherapists A comprehensive guide to the skills and tools you need to build and grow your hypnotherapy business Nick Brunger Digital list price £25.75 Softback copies £25 available from www.nickbrungerhypnotherapy.co.uk
Reviewed by Deborah Pearce
I always enjoy reading anything to do with marketing, especially about how other therapists established their businesses, and Nick Brunger’s book hits the spot. He is clearly a successful therapist and has set up a thriving practice not once, but twice when he moved from Nottingham to South Wales. Nick makes the point that marketing is at the core of a successful practice and sets out to share successful strategies that he and other experienced therapists have employed. The book is written in a clear no-nonsense style, making it an easy and enjoyable read.
Nick pitches the language at the lay person and even includes useful glossaries of terms that printers, graphic designers and web designers use to help therapists communicate more effectively with these suppliers. After providing an easy to understand definition of marketing, Nick covers the factors we as hypnotherapists need to consider when building our practice. It tackles all those dilemmas that can stall our progress in the early days – should I work from home or a clinic; should I have a separate telephone for the business; what should I charge; how should I handle missed appointments? What I like about this section is that Nick not only draws on his own experience, but makes reference to how other therapists operate, giving useful alternatives to his own way of working. The main thrust of the book is on marketing your practice and covers everything from the types of marketing literature you will need, through the pros and cons of paid for advertising, using the internet and the value of building relationships with other therapists. Where the book really comes into its own is in the sections dealing with the press, radio and TV. Nick’s past experience as a freelance journalist and a long career with the BBC enables him to provide valuable insight into how these media operate, and offers practical advice for making yourself noticed without becoming a nuisance. The book explores other strategies such as becoming a writer, guerrilla marketing (yes really!), viral marketing, networking and referrals. It concludes with a useful section on creating your own CDs. At the beginning of the book Nick explains there are plenty of other therapists in his geographic area and claims he is ‘one of the lucky ones’ to be so busy. But as Gary Player famously said, “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”. Anyone reading this book will be left in no doubt that to be successful you have to work hard at marketing your business. This book is packed with advice and ideas that any of us could put into practice. I consider myself more marketing aware than most therapists, but even I learned some new tricks. All in all, a thoroughly useful book and I would recommend it to both newly qualified practitioners and more experienced therapists who would like to now boost their business.