You know you are an outstanding professional hypnotist. You are dedicated to your craft. You’ve completed hypnosis certification training and perhaps even attended an advanced hypnotherapy course. You’ve nailed your hypnotherapy scripts and have seen great success helping your clients with their challenges. You are at the top of your game. But none of these matters if you don’t have clients.
How do you get people into the door so you can use your skills to help them improve their lives? One of the most effective ways to reach prospective clients is word-of-mouth referrals. Let’s examine why these recommendations are so powerful and critical to your hypnosis practice’s success.
Algorithm Anxiety
An internet search might be sufficient if you are looking for great Chinese food. Search engine results show the name of a place near you, and you check to see if they have your favorite dish and offer delivery to your address. Simple. But that’s because the stakes are relatively low.
Hypnosis is much more personal than Kung Pao Chicken. That means that most people will feel more comfortable using someone based on the recommendations of people they trust than on results from algorithms and marketing. They plan to reveal intimate details of their life, like trauma or deeply held fears. Using the first result in a Google search may not give them the confidence and comfort they need to try hypnosis. What is far more likely to provide them with that extra reassurance is a recommendation from someone they know.
Whether it’s for a new restaurant or a wellness provider, people will naturally feel more confident in recommendations from friends. When the stakes are higher than just a disappointing dinner, as they are with choosing a hypnotist, they will naturally be even more cautious. That means they will give more weight to hearing great, reassuring recommendations from people they trust than to 4.7 stars on an app.
Marketing Mistrust
Anyone can run an advertisement or start a social media campaign that says they are skilled, trustworthy, and successful. Potential clients know this and approach marketing materials with a healthy dose of skepticism. That doesn’t mean there isn’t value in marketing yourself. You absolutely should create a solid social media presence for your business and run targeted marketing campaigns. However, clients will gain more trust and confidence in you when they hear those glowing reports from someone, they know than when they hear them from your business’s Instagram account.
You have a vested interest in saying great things about your hypnosis business and your skills as a hypnotherapy practitioner. Your clients don’t. That means if they are saying great things about you, it’s because they genuinely believe them. A personal referral is like an advertisement without the self-promotion component. That makes it far more compelling.
Warm Welcome
In marketing, a “warm lead” is someone who comes to you and is already prone to trusting you and your product. Compare this to a cold lead, which might be someone who happens to see your marketing materials at a local retail store. That person isn’t necessarily even interested in hypnosis, much less in your practice in particular. So, you have to convince them 1) to give hypnosis a try to help them rewrite their personal narrative and 2) to trust you to help them with that journey.
If someone reaches out to you because they’ve heard about you from a friend, you know they are interested in and open to hypnosis. That already makes them a much warmer lead than someone who saw your ad while shopping for bread at a farmer’s market. Even better, they are coming to you with an inherent belief in your ability to help them. They heard great things from a friend or perhaps watched as that friend overcame a fear of flying or could finally kick their smoking habit. That means you are already most of the way to convincing them that you can help them, too.
Personal recommendations create warm leads, which are far more likely to create committed, paying clients.
Proof Positive
The concept of “social proof” refers to people’s tendency to believe others. People’s decision-making is influenced by other people.
Imagine you are in line at a food truck. You aren’t sure what to order. Everyone in front of you is talking about how fantastic the tacos are. As you move forward in line, you hear person after person ordering the tacos, and those around you eating their orders are raving about how great their food is. When you reach the front of the line, do you order the tacos or the hamburger? If you are like most people, you’ll go with the tacos based on the social proof you’ve seen that they are outstanding.
This concept doesn’t work for just tacos. If a prospective hypnosis client hears from a friend that you helped them overcome their limiting beliefs or tackle a stubborn challenge, they have social proof of the effectiveness of your skills.
Magnifying Word of Mouth
We’ve discussed how powerful word of mouth can be. Happy clients will naturally discuss their experiences with friends. That’s the most natural word of mouth and also the most effective.
However, you can tap into the power of personal recommendations by asking clients to provide testimonials that you can use in your marketing materials. That may be less effective than hearing about you from someone they know, but it adds more credibility to your marketing materials than just your own words. Use these testimonials on social media and other marketing campaigns.
You can even expand into the world of social media influencers. If a social media influencer mentions your services positively, that can bring additional leads. Their recommendation may mean less than one that comes directly from a trusted source, but it will still offer more social proof than traditional marketing materials. You can reach out to influencers to make an arrangement with them, offering a free or discounted session in exchange for their honest review of their experience with you.
Word-of-mouth referrals are the best marketing you can get. In addition to being highly trusted by those who receive them, these recommendations lead to prospective clients who are prone to trusting you and your abilities. These referrals mean much more than self-promotion ever will. Even better, they are free!
If a client tells you how pleased they are with your services, you can inform them that the best way to show their appreciation is by recommending you to friends and family. You can even consider offering a referral discount, where an existing client receives a small discount on their next session if they refer someone who ends up booking an appointment. That can amp up your word-of-mouth referrals and supercharge your business.
