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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 140. Karen Gray on hypnotic beginnings. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. I am. So excited for you to hear this conversation, and this is about a year in the making, and it’s about time you hear this, and especially for those of you that are just on that border of starting up.
You’ve got some hypnosis training, you’ve learned some techniques, you’ve gone to maybe a bunch of classes. I meet a lot of you out there. And yet something is holding you back from getting out there and getting started. That is specifically why I reached out to Karen Gray to have her on this program.
You’re gonna hear the entire origin story that Karen comes from a background in nursing. and it actually, to be quite fair, wasn’t quite an interest of hers originally to learn hypnosis. It was actually a friend of hers who went through one of my trainings and she’s hearing about what he had done and they’re in a practice session and you’re to hear the exact moment where something clicked and it’s the.
I gotta learn this moment. So a few weeks later I had my next training coming up. Karen’s here at my Virginia Hypnosis classroom going through the certification and just rockstar from the very beginning. And the cool thing is, is that again, there’s so many people I meet out. There who are just on that border, they’re, they may be chasing that next piece of paper, that next thing that maybe will make them feel ready.
And as the title of this session here this week is called Hypnotic Beginnings. Like a, Like a Rocket. Karen just took off finding office space, getting out into the community, and you’re gonna hear us really deep dive into the exact strategies that she did. From startup into what’s now Green Mountain and Hypnosis, uh, Green Mountain Hypnosis.
Check her [email protected] to learn more about Karen and the work that she does and check her out on Facebook. She’s out there doing some incredible, incredible things, though I’d mentioned that so often. You know, one of the things that holds people back as they’re looking at getting started in hypnosis is that, you know, all these cool strateg.
You know all these cool techniques yet, how the hell do you put it all together? . And quite honestly, when I left some of my original trainings and experiences, that’s kind of where I was too, that you’ve got ’em hypnotized now what? And you may have left with a couple of scripts, a couple of techniques.
And again, just this unfortunate state of confusion. And as a result of this, I have restructured the trainings that I do to help you to build that confidence, that creativity, that flexibility. In your process? Yes, of course. You can head over to hypnotic workers.com. That’s the all access pass to my digital hypnosis training library, though, just like Karen, the experience of being in the room, getting that hands on prac.
Just getting that hands on, directed feedback of how to improve your techniques and how to go above and beyond what you already know. So it’s where the trainings that I do, which you could learn more about over at Work Smart Hypnosis Live. Dot com or even work smart nlp.com. It’s where as much as we’re in this digital age of information on demand, nothing beats that moment of being there in the room and getting that feedback and to say it politely filling in the gaps that other trainings don’t quite fill in.
It’s how so often the trainings that I do are not just those of you out there that are brand new to hypnosis. It’s the people who have already gone through some bit of training. Again, something’s holding you back, so the courses I do are designed to help you to become confident, creative, flexible, and really unstoppable in your techniques.
Learn more over at Work Smart hypnosis live.com. Or work smart and lp.com though the training of students should not result in the students sitting around the feet of the master pointing up at them and saying, Look how awesome he is. And it’s part of why Karen’s here as one of my former students now absolutely.
On that level of peer. And there are some things that she talks about in this conversation that I gotta tell you. I’m gonna start doing with my business because dude, it is brilliant. And with that, listen through to the end of, then take some notes on this one. This is session number 144 Karen Gray on Hypnotic beginnings.
Clearly, when you were growing up, you always thought I’m gonna eventually become a hypnotist. Of course. Yeah, of course. Isn’t that what everybody think? So what was that journey for you in terms of how you first got interested in this? I had no interest in it whatsoever until I was working as a nurse.
I’m a registered nurse and I have a friend who took a class of yours and he said, I know hypnosis and this stuff is awesome. And I said, Yeah, right. . And then he hypnotized me and I was hooked. Mm-hmm. , absolute hook, line and singer through the whole process. And I started, the wheels started turning and I started realizing that just in my nursing practice alone, I use this all the time, and not only that, I can do it better and I can fill in all those gaps of people that can’t take that extra step to change their lives.
They don’t have the tool set. They don’t know how to change their diet to be successful living with diabetes. They don’t know how to manage pain without taking a fist full of pills every. So when I stumbled across Hyn, quite literally it was the missing link in my entire nursing practice. So I’ve gotta branch off of that for a moment.
And there’s some things you said I definitely want to come back to though. When you say it’s that missing link, what would you say from your perspective, from your background, what is this doing differently than what you were doing up until you first interacted? Hypnosis is different from traditional forms of treatment in that it’s not doing things to people.
It’s not giving you a pill or changing, addressing, or giving you an exercise to do. It’s teaching people how to change their lives. And it’s really that profound. Yeah, absolutely. So, so going back to that moment where it was the friend who first hypnotized you and hooked from there, is there something that stands out from their, from that experience?
Some story as to what happened during that interaction. That really helped to, to grab a hold of that attention. It was the arm lock. Yeah, it was the arm epilepsy. I am such a science nerd and I am so evidence based in my thinking that I went into the whole experience, very skeptical, but very willing to go with the process.
And as I’m sitting there in my living room with my arms stretched out and I. Cannot bend it, and I’m cracking up . This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened, and if this happens to me, the science nerd who has to know how everything works, then imagine what it can do for average everybody else.
Mm-hmm. . Which highlights source. Yeah, that, I mean, that helps to highlight the importance of folding in these moments of conviction. These little magical proofs inside of the process that some people would say, Oh, I don’t use those, cuz those are a stage hypnosis stunt. Yet you’re hearing from that analytical background.
No, here’s a moment where something is happening and things are different now. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And now I believe and do something else and make me go somewhere else. And it, it was that profound, that much of a game changer just in that instant moment of that one simple beast that really. I, I think a lot of hypnotists almost overlook, and you’re absolutely right because that’s, that’s a parlor trick.
That’s stage hypnosis. No, that’s, that’s your body. That’s that hypnosis. . Yeah. , you brought up something there that. You know, when you were in the class with me and when, uh, when I have anybody from, really from a nursing background, but even, uh, there’s a class that I’m currently running, here’s someone who works with students in a, uh, sort of coaching advising position.
Uh, here’s someone else who, uh, is working as a counselor and people coming in from I’d, I’d comfortably say now, any modality of working with people. What you mentioned as part of the commentary is what often pops up that I’m already doing this. And now I can do it even better. Is there something inside of that nurse nursing experience that Yes, we’re always communicating.
Yes, we’re always influencing with our language. Is there something that stands out that, uh, now with the knowledge of hypnotic language patterns, hypnotic techniques that you’re aware of that you can do differently in that respect? The imagery is a big thing, you know, and that was actually something that I was taught in nursing school years and years and years ago, that you can distract someone with imagery and bring them to a place and.
You know, everything is very structured in that nursing setting and everything has a procedure and everything has a correct way to do it. So the correct way to bring someone in down a path of imagery to distract them from pain or during a procedure doesn’t always work. Mm-hmm. . And now I have this whole other tool set where I can bring somebody to a place where they’re already looking to.
Yeah. You know that that preconceived notion that imagine the most relaxed place you can possibly be and now go there. And now with the NLP and the hypnotic language patterns, I have the tools to back that up and bring it to an even more effective level. And you’ve highlighted something there that I think needs to be highlighted here, which is that there’s often other professions that would have some knowledge of.
Hypnotic techniques, we’ll say it that way. They haven’t yet perhaps been trained in hypnosis, but techniques that we’d share with other communities, imagery being one and mm-hmm. to recognize that there’s other tools in the tool bag. There’s other ways we can get there. Absolutely. Yeah, so absolutely. So, so going through the training, uh, what would you say in terms of initially, you know, getting that interest, getting hooked?
Um, I’m trying to find a more clever metaphor cuz Hook doesn’t quite fit with an arm stiff and rigid and not get able to bend, . Um, Getting stuck onto the hypnosis. Let’s go with that. Um, what would you say was the initial goal of just simply signing up for a class? Let’s, let’s rewind to that. First I have a little bit of backstory is that I’ve always, in my nursing career, used my abilities as a nurse to my full advantage.
Meaning I’ve worked in a number of different specialties because I. And they’re fascinating. So I’ve done everything. I found emergency medicine to geriatrics and I was working as a team leader and a charge nurse in geriatrics at the time, which is a very challenging mm-hmm. field to be in. And my initial intent in the first set of classes that became down for was, Okay, give me something I can.
To help these elderly confused, wonderful people have an easier time. Mm-hmm. give me these language tools cuz I don’t have them. Yeah, well I did have them. I just didn’t know I did . So, but that was the initial, original intent of signing up for the class, which swiftly turned into, Oh my God. I could be a hypnotist.
I could like open a practice. Have this be my full-time, real job. Yeah. I think I realized that on the way back north, the first trip. Right. So, So that was, Was that during it or was it on the travel? Cuz from basically Virginia to correct me here. Vermont, Yes. Been a bit of a nice road trip to have some time to think about things.
I’m sure. Was it some experience of training, some experience of hypnosis that helped to open up that other option of not just enhancing what you were already doing? But to take this to a whole different, uh, arena within your life, it was definitely on the ride home to Vermont. And, and that, that time of just having nothing to do, but look at fields and trees and reflect.
Yeah. And the wonderful part about my experience was I was stuck on it already. Mm-hmm. and. In your class, we go through, I don’t know how many times of actually being hypnotized. Yes. . So you develop this. I, I was so jazzed on the way home I was, it was so hard to stay in the tiny car all the way there because I’m so excited about this.
And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about all the different ways that it could work. And it evolved from, Oh my God, this is gonna be so cool to bring back as a nurse to. Oh my God. All those people that don’t know how to quit smoking or don’t know how to control their diet or don’t know this is big.
Mm-hmm. and I need to do something bigger with it. Yeah. Which I love that mindset of, again, looking at things to a much bigger audience that we can stay within that realm of what was comfortable or well, what happens if I do this? What happens? I do that. So let’s, let’s go through some of that journey. So out of training, what was that next step for?
I researched, well, I live right on the border of Vermont, New Hampshire, so I have options as to where I’m gonna locate, and I had already decided that this is what I’m doing. I, I had the opportunity to change careers and I jumped in with both feet. Mm-hmm. as, so I came out of the course with so much confidence in my, myself, and in hypnosis of the profession that there wasn’t any, Yeah, so it was the step of researching which state was going to be better for me to register my business, and turns out it was New Hampshire, do you mind if I ask how, what, what was helping to, to influence that taxes?
Yeah. . Yep. New Hampshire had, is. Slightly more generous to, um, DBAs, to sole proprietorships than Vermont is. So it was taxes, right? Which, which to highlight that though, I mean it’s where just a little bit of research, um, I’d give an example now. to the audience out there don’t necessarily take what I’m about to say as being the absolute gospel because it may be different where you live as opposed to where I am.
I’m not an accountant and I don’t pretend to play one on, uh, iTunes podcasts, um, , but in Virginia years ago, the Simple Switch now I’m still in llc. But I was able to fill out like a one page document to have my LLC get taxed as if I was an S corporation, and I mean, the tax savings is almost $10,000 for me, given to all the projects that I’m doing.
Originally I was holding back from doing that cuz I thought, Oh no, I have to file as an S corp. That’s gonna be a lot of paperwork. I’m gonna have to hire a lawyer to consult with this. And it was my accountant who just goes, you know, in Virginia it’s a two page document and you just file as if, So it’s where.
I’d comfortably say these are questions. Excuse me. These are questions that you did the right thing there, Karen, which was that you didn’t , let me jab it myself. You didn’t ask me about that. You did your own research . Um, I just have to bring it up here. Where did you go to find that information? How did you track that knowledge down?
I am a massive fan of the Google search. There you go. . And, and it was as easy as typing in starting a business in Vermont versus New Hampshire. Mm-hmm. . And from there I was brought to both states, small business websites and which have tons of information. So I have to assume that every state has some sort of a, an sba, a small business association.
Yes. So go to that website because there is tons of information there. And do the Google search because tons of information is overwhelming and sometimes you need the guy that’s already looked at it and made a checklist, of the pros and cons between each state. So that’s how I came through and I went and found an office that was nothing fancy.
Um, remembering. The hypnotist that you told us, that started out literally in a closet. Yes, and, And my requirements for an office were, I need to be able to be here when I want to be here. And I need to be able to fit this recliner. Mm-hmm. , which, and I bought a $50 recliner off Craigslist and people rave about it.
Yeah. It’s the most comfortable thing they’ve ever been in. It’s amazing. I have to highlight that because every chair I have ever owned in my off. This was also purchased from Craigslist, and everyone always raves about how comfortable it is and, uh, the, the closet reference, uh, for mention here, and we’ll link to this in the show notes over at Work Smart Hypnosis.
Um, that was actually Tom Nicole, and he was on this program back on session number 88, but who’s counting? And, uh, the, the fa, the now famous clip of Tom on Dateline NBC doing the weight loss challenge. The office he was in apparently used to be a closet. Yeah. And they converted it into an office to then rent it to him.
So yes, start with what you can. Yeah. And then it was, Okay, I have all of these pieces in place. Now what do I do? ? Mm-hmm. , you mean if you build it, they will come, is not the only strategy. No. Oddly enough, no . I wanted it to be because that was a great idea, but we have. New England is a strange place. Jason.
Mm-hmm. and it’s like no other. And people here have very definitive ideas about things. Yes. And hypnosis belongs with the state fair. That was challenge number one. Mm-hmm. to get people to understand. That I’m not a poem reader, A and B, that this is something that can actually help you. You know, I’m not the guy that comes up to the Marriott every year and charges you $60 to fit in the auditorium.
I’m not the lady at the state fair who’s gonna make you click like a chicken. This is really gonna help change your life. Yeah. So what are some of those things that you did to overcome? , I read everybody else’s articles. Yes, , I, I read every piece. I signed up for every piece of mail that you offered on your website.
So I got all of your weekly emailings. I did the same thing for James Hazelrigg. Mm-hmm. and Richard Donard. And, and it’s that strategy of modeling excellence. And I said, Okay, this makes sense to me and this is gonna make sense to my audience up here in New England. And now I just flood my area with this is who I am and this is what I do and this is why you want it.
And I used that specific formula almost verbatim. Since I opened a year ago next week. Yeah. So what would you say has been, let’s rewind back. Is there something really cool that you did correct me on this, but you did something rather soon in the opening of your business to get outstanding visibility to immediately establish yourself?
I did a couple things that, I’m not sure which one you are thinking of, but, Oh, I’m here. Sure. Gonna listed it here. So let, let, tell us some of those things that you. First up, I joined, um, the Chamber, the chamber of Homers, and I went to every one of their after hours and just charmed the pants off of people.
Mm-hmm. , I held an open house for World Tiffany Day, which got the news out to a lot of people and very few people showed up. But it set a tone right. And then it was a great flash bang introduction and we. I immediately set up the webpage and I immediately set up the Facebook page and I hit the, The list serves.
Mm-hmm. , the community email list serves. Oh, yeah. With weekly articles, and I’m still doing that today, and the majority of my clients come from those list serves. Yeah. Let, let’s rewind cause I wanna hit a couple of things and especially I wanna spend some more time talking about those emails and those articles.
Um mm-hmm. , I think you’ve heard my story before too, that you, that you did the World Hypnotism Day event and got a lot of publicity, uh, for remember, right? Was that around when you got, correct me here, a ribbon cutting ceremony with the chamber? Oh no. That was actually this past summer when we moved, we moved to the office.
Yeah, because I was in a position where I wanted to look a little bit fancier. Mm-hmm. a little more professional. So the building I was in before was a, An original tire warehouse building. Yeah. The chain store. And so we moved out of there to an actual professional park. And when we moved, I asked the chamber to do a ribbon cutting.
And I can highly recommend this if you are involved with your chambering, you have the notion that the chamber is working for you and you’re working for the chamber. Ask them to do a ribbon cutting ceremony for you no matter when you opened. So they set up this whole little event. They advertised it on their website, on their Facebook.
They advertised it to their mailing list, which is enormous, and invited every chamber member. To come to the event and showed up with a big blue ribbon. Mm-hmm. , and a giant pair of scissors. And it was great. And I had people calling, I had more than a dozen people call just that week. Yeah. Which this is the benefit of just simply connecting.
With that local community and, and the world of a similar thing to Chamber of Commerce. There’s bni, uh, Business Networking International, which is like a chamber, but there’s specific rules inside of it. A little bit more strenuous in terms of an environment, though, one I comfortably endorse, if you can find a good chapter into your area that it begins to build this what?
BNI calls, visibility, credibility, profitability, that it’s this arc that the entire transactional relationship has to pass throughout, and the fact that you already have that rapport with the chamber, I, I’ve had so many people who would say, Yeah, but why would they do that with my business? And exactly caring what you did.
You just asked for it because they have a thing for that. And as much as that’s also yes, of course to help promote this new local business, it’s also benefiting them because it’s spreading the awareness around their organization. So exactly what you did, even just moving the office, Let’s do a ceremony and it gathers this great PR event to become.
Yeah, absolutely. And I pay due to the chamber so I can ask them to do things. Exactly, yeah. And I go meeting, I go to the chamber events because I’m a part of the community and that’s big here. Mm-hmm. , you know, people really, the people in my. Community in, in, in New England really need to see who you are.
They really need to see what kind of a person you are, and they need to see you out there because otherwise you’re just somebody who wants their money. , that’s not, We can compartmentalize that to New England. We can compartmentalize to where you are though. Really that’s the relationship every. That it’s the whole value of the, the lead generation method of marketing at times, where it’s the gathering people in, letting them build rapport with you, letting them find out what you do.
And it’s only then that it could possibly lead to, Okay, here’s how we’re gonna work together. Here are the things we’re going to do together. That that’s a universal reality of it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I agree. And it’s been great. Um, I think if I were to give a piece of advice to anybody starting out it, don’t be afraid to go do things.
Mm-hmm. , don’t be afraid to go to chamber events, to go talk to people to go find out that something’s not gonna work Right. Or that something is gonna work. Um, the, I tried to get in. The Rotary Club and to give talks at the different paternal and community organization. They’re not interested right now.
Mm-hmm. , but they knew who I am. Right. And I’ve gotten phone calls from people who have heard of me through the Rotary and the different clubs, and that’s because I stuck my head out and I went and I had a free lunch. I talked to the people in the club and said, Look, this is what I do and what can I do for you so that you can do for me?
Really? Although, I have to ask just here what kind of, what kind of opportunity, what kind of presentation were you offering them? I gave them a very, this was very early. Mm-hmm. , so I was. Not as focused or polished as I am now, but I gave them kind of a menu Yeah. To choose from. Good, good. That I can do. I can do a talk about stress, I can do a talk about time management.
I can do a talk about. How to help your family member to do something. Really, I just wanna be in front of people and talk , which, what I wanna highlight there is that you’re doing that exactly right of thinking, what is it that I can share with you? What is it that I can give you? That in most cases when people get that, no, it’s because they’re just simply, Well, they’re offering something.
People don’t know they need, let me come in and give a talk on hypnosis and, Oh no, we don’t need that. Well, they don’t know they need that. So instead, exactly what you’ve been doing there of here’s this. And yes, to give a menu, build a bit of a double bind, perhaps, Hey, I can give a presentation on this or that.
Which one do you think is best for your group? Right. Yeah. Although back to, I have to highlight this, you mentioned, uh, we already hyped the session with Tom Nicole, so we’re both in favor of his work, though. You did a World Hypnotism Day event, which gave you visibility, but not a lot of traffic to your office, right?
Correct. Although from those events, are there. Assets. Are there things that you generated, articles, images, whatever it might be that you’re still using, even though it didn’t seem like a big event when you first did it? Is that the case at all? Absolutely. Yeah. Tell tell to us about that. There’s a, um, on my website, I have a section of, essentially it’s stuff we did and in that, The photos from the setup of the Worldism day.
We had a great wide open space. We put out snacks. We, you know, I set the room up so that we could do a, a demonstration and kind of a, an open town meeting kind of. Drop in and talk open house style. So I was able to gather the pictures and I have to tell you the best piece that I got from that. And the most valuable thing that I took from that experience was the confidence to do it.
Mm-hmm. , Um, let’s see. World Difference Day is the 4th of January. I opened my office on December 16th. I think I had had maybe. one or two clients total prior to doing that event? Yeah, so I was all bravado at not a lot of confidence and doing that event was amazing because. Okay, so I had two people show up and not a lot of traffic generated, but I was able to do this.
Mm-hmm. and I was able to market it and I know what to do better next time. And it’s about building those experiences and a lot in the same way that we work with our clients to build those experiences and build up that toolbox so that you have. Not necessarily tangible pieces to take to your next experience, right?
Which it’s just that whole mindset of getting that asset from the experience, leveraging it to something else, to which I would proudly share. I’m still sitting here next to my front page coverage. Alexandria Times 2011 World Hypnotism Day feature that local hypnotist open eyes to wellness and. Smiling face, front page of the paper.
And when that printed, one person called me. Yep. Yep. . And that one person who called me did become a client yet, uh, I’ll generalize it for obvious pur purposes. It was the most beautiful situation of secondary gain that I had never encountered and never since I’ve encountered with the person getting over a fear of flying mm-hmm.
that our hurdle was, well, if I cancel the flight, my kids are homeschooled and I get to stay home with my family. And, you know, I’d really rather do that than even get on the plane. And we had that to overcome and we, we got the change, we got the, but it took some work to get there. So. This beautiful piece, perfectly positioning me wasn’t, I can now say this wasn’t even bringing in the ideal style of client, but what matters is that document is still front and center on my website.
Still using it, still generating that. Yeah. Which let’s chat about these email list serves. I think that’s a, uh, a thing that very often I know there’s no content on that inside of hypnotic business systems and um, that’s something that. Only done a little bit of, but I want to hear more about what you’re doing with that.
Absolutely. Um, first of all, what are, what are some of these groups that you were able to target? The opioid crisis. Mm-hmm. is enormous everywhere. So I wrote an article based on, again, based on somebody else’s article, because I have no interest in rear-ending the. I wrote an article, I believe the title was The Problem with the Opioid Problem.
Mm-hmm. . And in everything that I’ve heard, we keep talking about what do we do with all these addicts now, But there’s no discussion about what do we do about the pain in the first place so that we don’t have addicts. Mm-hmm. . So I basically entire article on this and pulling things from turn events to write a substantive article.
That there’s a couple tricks to working with list serves because there’s rules, and I’ll get to that in a minute. But yeah, write a substantive article that has to do with something that people care about and whether you get that idea from, I listen to public radio all the time, so whether I get it from public radio or I get it from the trends on the Google website, however, I find.
It’s something that people are already interested in, so they’re more likely to click on it to see what it is that I have to say. So phase one, you’re targeting something that clearly people are, let’s say this, this way, are hungry for, they’re actually looking for information. You’re doing a bit of market research to see that yes, there’s actually a need for this.
rather than just what you decided to wake up that morning and go, I wanna write about this today. Right. Beautiful. And sometimes that happens, but I don’t send them out. Mm-hmm. right away. So. Absolutely. So I wrote a really great piece in the middle of the summer about helping your students focus, which had no place in the middle of the summer.
Right. So that one sat in the drive until, until September rolled around. So be time. And be smart about when you’re sending things out. But with the list serves, people don’t like your, your entries to be long. Mm-hmm. , because it comes out as one giant ticker tape type sheet. So what type of length would something typically be?
About? A paragraph. Mm-hmm. . Four or five sentences. Yeah. So I set up a blog on my webpage, so now my entry will be, my entry in the list. Serve will be the head. The, the title of my article, it will be a little snippet from it, a little idea of why you wanna read this, and click here to read the full article, which to be fair on what you’re, what you’re doing there.
And I wanna highlight this. You’re not saying call this number today to book your appointment instead. Um, I always go to horrible metaphors for this. Let’s start with the more positive one. You’re in the shopping mall. Here’s the new restaurant, and they’re giving away samples of the food. Uh, you’re in Costco and they’re giving out samples of the items, and yes, this is the same exactly.
Drug dealer model that yes, first taste is free, uh, , but to, to look at it as you’re providing value first. And if there is something you’re selling there, you’re only selling the next step of click here to continue reading. Yes. Beautiful. And at the bottom, at the bottom of my articles, and at the bottom of that email, I include a piece that it’s kind of the, About the author.
Mm-hmm. paragraph. It’s three sentences that says, Karen Gray is a registered nurse and a certified hypnotist with a client centered practice in Lebanon, New Hampshire. If you want more information about this topic, call or email. Nice. So I still haven’t asked you to come be a client. Beautiful. Mm-hmm. . And you wanna limit those to about once a week because people get sick of looking at you,
Yeah. Yeah. So about once a week I do an article and it’s. I made friends with a blogger. Yeah. That was fun. Well, let’s, let’s rewind for a moment that you highlighted something great there, that here’s this article you wrote about working with students and yet realizing, okay, summertime might not be timely.
Let me table this for later. Here is this message and I need the time it out so I’m not. Overstay my welcome. Within this community, this is just that concept that in media, they talk about it as be building that, uh, that, that, uh, editorial calendar to at least have an idea as to when something is gonna go out, when something is going to promote.
What I also want to draw out is that you’re typically only writing these pieces about one specific thing, aren’t you? Yes. Yeah. You mean you’re not just giving the list of everything possible that you can work? Oh my God, no . Nobody has time for that. Right? It, it’s one thing and it’s timely and it matters.
Um, I have the advantage of being someone who likes what I like and has a fairly short attention spin. Mm-hmm. . So I use myself as a model that, am I gonna pay any attention to this? Is this the thing I’m gonna roll my eyes at and scroll down and pass by? Or am I really gonna see what’s going on here? So try to look at what you’re doing from the outside, From the other side.
Yeah. So to write one of these pieces, just rough sketch of it, how long do you think it would say, if you had to ask you how long it takes you to write one of these pieces, what would that be? A couple of hours? Mm-hmm. . So putting some, Yeah, putting some good time into it. So it’s the initial paragraph. It’s expanded a little bit further on your blog, part of your website and the call to action.
Call me to discuss this further. Yeah. Beautiful. And it works and the most amazing part is the calls that I get and the clients that I get from those very rarely have anything to do with the article I wrote. Yeah. It’s, it’s smokers for the pain article and, and weight loss for the student articles and it’s, they, they very rarely have anything to do with what I actually wrote.
Well, this is that benefit of, and clearly you do work with things beyond just that one thing and to be able to reach out and you’re using. The metaphor that I’d give this is that it’s that hub and spoke model that you have the hub of your entire business, the website itself, you as the practitioner. Yet the email goes out, here’s the event.
These things are those spokes of that old timey wagon wheel, and that’s what’s drawing people in. And yes, they read the article on pain, but they go, Can you help me quit smoking that you’re met with a higher sense of regard because you’re positioning yourself as the expert there. Yeah. Outstanding. So how many, uh, just to have some more info on this, how many of these different is email lists of serve groups are you, uh, making use of these days?
I send an article to every list served within driving distance of my office. And about how many would you say that is? 30 miles. So, 15 or 20. Mm-hmm. . And how did you go about finding these? We have an organization, I don’t know if it’s everywhere, but it’s called Vital Communities. Mm-hmm. , And it’s was originally set up to be an emergency alert system via email.
And people use it as buying and selling things. And I had had some experience with it in the past and thought, I wonder if I could, Hmm. , maybe I could use this like this. Yeah. And it’s worked beautiful. There’s so many opportunities out there that it just comes down to, Did you have to ask to be able to send to that?
Did you have to go through some sort of review for. No, you sign up for the lister and as long as you follow the rules mm-hmm. , then you can post as you like. Now it’s, you have to be respectful of people’s time and people’s space and that took a little bit of learning. And there was, there was the week that my automation system screwed up and probably user error, but it over sent.
Emails. So I had to issue an apology to the list serves for the seven email entries I just sent them. Wow. Nice. Yeah. . So it was, yes. So it, it’s really just a matter of. Don’t be afraid to learn. Yeah. And take advantage of opportunities. Jason, we did the coolest thing for the Great American Spoke out. We held a group of no session for free.
Nice. At a facility, and we had about a dozen people show up. That was on November 16th. And as of last communication with them last week, they’re all still happily non-smoking. Beautiful. , but that put us in a position to advertise also through the American Cancer Society. Yeah. Which is great. So let’s highlight that because there’s too many people I’d interact with that are afraid to do what, um, quite honestly I’m doing right now with you, but also what you’ve been doing within your business and what really was the cornerstone of what built.
Virginia Hypnosis for me, you are willing to do things that do not immediately necessarily convert over to dollars in the account. Correct. So you can’t necessarily write that article and suddenly because you submitted it, um, you’re not really putting it out there in a way that someone’s now paying you to read it.
You’re not selling it as an ebook. You’re willing to put something out there for. Or even in that case of the smoke out to give people the experience to walk by the chicken teki place and get the chicken on a stick to get that experience. What, What’s driving that for you? What’s motivating that for you?
We help people. There you go. Bottom line. I, I didn’t get into this to get rich. Mm-hmm. , I didn’t, I didn’t get into this to make my first million. You know, We are, in my opinion, we are by and large in the helping and healing profession. And it’s just a different modality than traditional medicine. And when we have the opportunity to help people, that’s what we should do.
And I, it’s probably oversimplified, but that’s really what the driving force behind that is. Although, let’s take that and let me though, bring in the other side of it because of that willingness, because of that drive. The language that I would use is that by accident, that’s bringing you a whole lot of clients.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. By accident. Mm-hmm. , and you have to be aware of what’s going. It all ties in together. You have to be aware of what’s going on in your community and be willing to help people when they. We have a huge hospital. Mm-hmm. , about 10 minutes from my office, and they had an incident where a patient was shot and killed in their hospital room by someone who came in and I sat in my little office down the road and I thought, Oh my God, what do I do?
And I actually messaged you and said, What? What would you do, ? And we offered, I was able to offer free session to the people that were involved in that, and that was the most rewarding thing. Is to have people come in and I would slate out two or three hours to just do whatever it is you need to do. If you need to come in and talk about what happened, then do that to use, um, emotional clearance, hypnosis and, and get you centered again and let go of some of that baggage.
Yeah, we did that too and come back if you need it, but do this, and I still occasionally have. One or two nurses call me. Yes. By accident. I did get a couple paying clients out of that, but the bottom line was, this is happening in the community that I’m a part of and Right. Well, I mean, it’s that, let’s bring it even back to, as a nurse, a different position of course, but just that first responder mindset of, I can help with this.
Let me get in there and see what I can do to make this a better situ. Exactly, which, if you think about it, and not to necessarily just package this as business strategy. I mean that’s, that’s just in general what people do. You know, And that’s, that’s the world that I’d rather live in. And to be able to have that opportunity where, You know, I, I had often used the phrase that we charge for our services for also the reason that occasionally when the one calls up and cannot afford it, it’s not even a concern to say, Just come in, that you, you have those calls over the years where, you know, here I tell you the short story of the guy who’s calling into quit smoking.
And, uh, well, what’s the reason? Well, I’m going through a lot of treatments right now, um, and it’s just really hard and I know I need to quit. It’s just been the hardest thing I can do. I, I really can’t afford it. My insurance isn’t covering this. And to find out, this is a guy who just September 11th, 2001 turns on the television.
And as he put it, they looked like they needed help and gets in his, gets in his car, drives, they won’t let him over the bridge and the car. He abandons the car, he walks. and, well, you’re not, uh, trained for this. He goes, It doesn’t matter. I’m here to help. And he’s there. And unfortunately because there wasn’t a specific category for him, all the legislation that was passed still having health insurance issues and it’s just the, I got, I got two o’clock tomorrow, come in.
How much is it? Just, I’ll see you tomorrow too. Right. That, yeah, it’s that part of giving back to that community, but also just these are skills that are meant to be. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, transitioning over to the, the experience in the office, um, what I often like to talk about as the user experience, so here comes your client, they’re about to go into your business, they’re about to work with you.
What’s that experience? How is that gonna be unique? Going through that with. They helped me. . End the recording. There we go. . So I think the majority of the people I’ve seen come in, unless they’ve done hypnosis or have a lot of experience with meditation, they come in a little apprehensive. So I really take that time to come on in and you have some paperwork for me, and you get to sit in the big comfy chair and tell me about what, Tell me about what it is you wanna change and.
If you invite them into that conversation, they’ll begin to share with you and, and you’ll be able to tease out those nuances of what’s going on with them really, and what your secondary gain is and what is the, what is the pattern that I need to approach so that we can get to the root of what’s going on in your head.
And sometimes it’s okay. So instead of. Weight loss, we’re gonna do stress management first. . And sometimes it’s, How about we just get you deep in hypnosis and we ask your subconscious mind to do that. Mm-hmm. , whatever it is, because you know best. And building up that, taking the 15, 20 minutes to build up that relationship, put them at ease and then say, This is what we’re gonna.
And I’m gonna hypnotize you and we’re gonna go to this place and throw in pieces of, of Jason’s all positive, free talk to set the tone and set them at ease, and then launch them into hypnosis using those, those convincers and using those pieces so that they have something. Wow. Not only do I feel amazing, and not only do I feel better, but did you see how my arm wouldn’t.
Is there a story of working with a client? Is there a story that kind of stands out that kind of defines how it is that, uh, you approach this work? I had a woman come in a few weeks ago now who wanted to work on her self-esteem, and I sent her a benefits form so she could list out seven benefits of what making this change would.
She typed out single space, four and a half pages of ways that she could be better. And I thought, Oh dear , this is not good. And in that time I took, before we ever went into hypnosis, before we ever went into trans and taking that time to get to know her, we were able to have her identify a severely damaged self esteem and.
Go into 40 minutes of hypnosis after that and have her come out of the experience standing up straight and feeling confident in herself and able to speak loudly and clearly. When she first walked into the office, her posture was stooped. She didn’t look me directly in the eye. She folded her arms over herself, you know, all of that closed off body language.
And when she stood up in that recliner, she stood up full face, shoulders back, head up a completely different woman, and I had her redo the benefits form again. For her second session, and she came up with three or four things, and it was beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful, and I don’t think we would, if I had just taken what she gave me and, and put it in that cookie cutter approach, I never would’ve gotten to what she really needed.
And this may be a, a carryover from nursing, but people don’t always know what they need. And sometimes you kind of kind of bring them to a place where they can say, I need a cheese sandwich, or I need more self-confidence, or I just really need to lose 20 pounds. So getting down to those specifics, but also clearing away the stuff that’s often.
Hiding it too. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. So it’s been about a year now since you opened up shop, and if you had to do a few things over, perhaps, is there anything that comes to mind in terms of, not to say you did it badly before, but to say we can always refine, We can always, uh, remodel and improve. I am currently rapidly working on producing videos, and I would’ve done that a lot sooner.
Although the benefit is the work that you’ve been doing for Chamber, any bit of networking, giving presentations, the writing. Now that you’re doing the video, I bet that you it’s, it is the seamless transition to go, Okay, I can do a video about this topic. I can do a video about that topic. Yeah, that the, the work you’ve already been doing has prepared you for this next phase.
So there is a natural progression of it. So the stuff you’ve already been out there in the community saying, now you get to say to a little camera lens. Outstanding. Exactly. Outstanding. So where can people learn more about you online? We can go to www green mountain hypnosis.com. Outstanding. Or you can search for me, you’re linked everything in the show notes as well.
And Karen, congratulations on everything in this first year and I’m looking forward to seeing even greater things than years ahead. Thank you so much, Jason. Jason, Lynette here once again, as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program, sharing it, uh, liking it. Leaving your reviews online and all that good social stuff that we all know about.
As always, you can check out hypnotic workers as well as hypnotic business systems. These are my digital access programs, one for your hypnosis technique. The other for your hypnosis business though, let’s hang out. Join me at work smart hypnosis live.com or work smart nlp.com because yes, in our modern era, information on demand is phenomenal.
Though getting that hands on experience, practicing these techniques, getting that directed feedback upon how to become better and better at what you do. Look forward to hanging out with you in person. Work Smart hypnosis live.com or work smart and lp.com. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.
