As a registered professional, you may feel stymied by the stringent requirements of your professional association when it comes to marketing your online business.
You can’t just advertise your services online the way other businesses do, leaving you at a distinct disadvantage.
This is because you:
In this article, I address three ways in which you can still have an online business, remain ethical and in integrity, but circumvent your registered professionalās requirements and still find success online.
This is perhaps the trickiest skill to master, especially if youāre an Empath or Spiritual entrepreneur. Thatās because in your offline business, people will typically see in order to āfeel better.ā
āFeeling betterā isnāt a tangible outcome. For you to remain in integrity thatās not even an outcome you can promise for sure!
A tangible outcome is one your clients will have for sure when they work with you – that you can DEFINITELY deliver on.
For example, I could make a promise that if you complete my program, youāll have a fully functioning WordPress website by the end of our work together.
Alternatively, I could also promise youāll be able to write fully SEO-optimised blog articles!
(I have an article on content creation called “5 Masterful Ways To EXPLODE Your Content Creation” that you might want to check out.)
These are outcomes I can promise for sure. They allow me to remain in integrity and deliver on my strengths.
A process isnāt the same as an outcome. For example, I could teach you Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), but will you HAVE as a result of learning EFT? You might clear some blocks or you might not. Promising something you canāt deliver on for certain will get you into trouble!
Now, letās not get confused. Your outcome could well be metaphysical rather than physical, but still be something you can deliver on for sure.
If you take a look at some of the most successful Spiritual entrepreneurs, they demonstrate tangible outcomes in action.
One of my favourite Hay House authors, Elizabeth Robinson, does this very well. Sheās written a book called āThere Are No Goodbyesā in which she makes a promise: Your consciousness continues even after the death of the physical body.
For her, she knows this as a tangible reality. She has embodied experience of the ādreamscapeā as she calls it. Her clients have a DEEP DESIRE to have an embodied experience of metaphysical reality, but havenāt yet. Her book offers them a glimpse of what this feels like. Additionally, in her retreats she teaches participants how to have this experience.
It will take some considerable reflection and testing to come up with your specific, tangible outcome if youāre a spiritual practitioner. What I suggest is, do lots of research and speak to successful spiritual entrepreneurs to get the inspiration you need to discover your outcome.
Your offline clients buy from you because a face-to-face consultation gives them a different experience than an online one. They experience you in real time and you help them feel better. Your clients have the opportunity to meander and consider as many aspects of their lived experience as they need.
Clients may enjoy the process of working with you, even without receiving specific solutions. The interaction is one that occurs in real time and is multi-sensory.
The online world operates differently. Itās neither sensory nor embodied, itās imaginative. It doesnāt operate in ārealā time. You could post something today and five years later it will seem as fresh and inspiring to the person coming across it as it was on the day it was made.
Online is a world of possibility, NOT reality.
So important questions to ask are, who buys online and what do they buy? That will give you a clue as to where to start pitching your offering.
Finally, itās especially important if youāre a registered professional to keep a clear separation between your offline and your online business. In your online business, make no mention of your status as a registered professional.
You must offer something quite different. There may be a relationship between what you offer offline to online, but you cannot be seen to have an overlap.
For example, in my offline business, I work as a registered Clinical Psychologist with expertise in the area of workplace bullying. Although Iāve written a lot of articles on the subject and even have several online courses available, I found that my clients were far more interested in working with me offline in this area than online.
Consequently, after many years of persisting, this year I finally cut the cord entirely. My new program, āEmpath Entrepreneur Startupā has NO relationship with my work as a psychologist. Rather itās all about sharing the amazing array of skills Iāve learned over the years as an Empath Entrepreneur.
A good way to concretise this separation is having separate business structures for offline and online endeavours. All the accounting and bookkeeping should also be separate.
So there you have it – three tips for you if youāre a registered professional who wishes to take your business online. They are: 1) Make Sure To Offer A Tangible Outcome, 2) Your Face-To-Face Clients Buy For Different Reasons Than Your Online Clients and 3) Keep Offline And Online Business Separate.
Of course, thereās far, far more I could tell you on this subject because as you can tell, Iām passionate about it. To continue the conversation, please do join my free group, āEmpaths Onlineā here.
In the meantime, download my Fast Guide To Empath Entrepreneur Start-Up. Enter your contact details to get immediate access to your free guide, as well as my email coaching series that will guide you through it, step-by-step.
As an Empath Entrepreneur, Iām especially interested in helping professional women who want to take their amazing skills into a new online business with the aim of building a location independent income. Iāve had over 10 yearsā experience in creating a compelling online presence. In fact, if you Google: āDr Sophie Henshaw,ā youāll get over 201,000 hits with all the posts, articles and media appearances Iāve made over the years. Iāve appeared on Channel 10, 6PR, Fremantle Herald and WA Today. Iāve had articles published in PsychCentral, Womenās Agenda, NineMSN Health, Rebelle Society and Huffington Post. Iām currently a Thought Catalog contributor. P.S. I also practice as a clinical psychologist in my "offline" life!
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