This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
What if you are an alternative wellness practitioner? We actually have a question from such a person here today on the podcast, and you need to educate potential clients. Like you have potential clients that you think you can help or you believe you can help based on past experience and the skills that you have developed over much time and study, but it's hard to explain what you do. So today we're talking specifically about Reiki. Reiki is a wellness practice.
We're going to hear from a Reiki practitioner, and she's doing pretty well, but she'd like to serve more people. And sometimes people don't know what Reiki is and how it all works. I'll do my best to give a short definition in the answer. But more importantly, we're going to look at providing a service when you have to educate your customers first. This creates a little bit of a barrier, but it's not insurmountable because of course people do Reiki and other practices that not everybody is familiar with. So let's talk about how
you might handle this situation. I'll do my best to give a helpful answer to our caller and perhaps something that's helpful for somebody else out there as well. Her question and my answer in 30 seconds. Hi there, this is Sarah calling from Portland. I've been practicing Reiki for several years now, and I recently decided to start offering my services as a side hustle. The challenge I'm facing is that a lot of people in my community still don't
really understand what Reiki is or how it works. I spend a lot of time educating my potential clients, which can be time consuming. Do you have any tips for effectively explaining Reiki and building awareness so I can spend more time actually providing the treatments instead of constantly educating people. Okay, first of all, for anyone who does not know, Reiki is an alternative healing practice where a practitioner channels energy through their hands into a patient, a client, whatever you prefer, aiming to balance life force energy, promote healing and relaxation. So it's kind of a spiritual practice. There is some limited
or at least mixed scientific support for this practice, but it's often used as a complementary therapy to other practices to reduce stress, manage pain and enhance overall well being. So that's Reiki. I've actually had it done a couple times myself. I thought it was interesting. It didn't change my world or changed my life, but I didn't hate it either. So Sarah is one
of these practitioners. Building awareness and educating potential clients is definitely one of the biggest hurdles that Reiki practitioners and other alternative wellness providers can face. So first thing I would do is make sure that you are trying to reach the right people in the first place. Because if you're trying to reach people who don't have a problem who are not in pain or otherwise having a problem that you wish to solve or you believe that your practice addresses, those are the wrong people. You want to make sure that you are reaching people who need what you have to offer. From there, you want to develop a concise
elevator pitch that you can use to succinctly explain Reiki. You can probably do a much better job than I just did since this is your practice. This is your specialty. But whatever you say, distill it down to the key points. Make sure you focus on the benefits people can expect. Perhaps some quick case studies or testimonials as well. And speaking of testimonials,
once you're working with people and they're having a good experience, really encourage them or even even ask them politely to share their experience so that others can come on board as well. Often hearing real life accounts from people that you know and trust can be much more powerful in convincing them to try it out. So be proactive, be creative, but also make sure you're trying to reach the right people. I think the wrong thing to do would be to go out and try to sell Reiki to everyone. A lot of people will not be into it and that's okay. A lot of huge businesses can be built, even very successful businesses,
whatever your standard of success is, by repelting people or polarizing people who are not a good fit. So keep that in mind. Listeners, if you have a question of something I can help you with that will hopefully help other people as well, www.sidehustleschool.com. We have all sorts of resources there. You can send something in to us and we've got much more coming before the end of the year. I'm excited for the next couple of months. Every
single episode is always free. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
From the Onward Project.
