What does trust have to do with marketing your equine assisted business?
According to Gallup, the number one reason people follow you is because they trust you. I know from decades of experience in sales that the number one reason people purchase from you is that they trust you can help them.
The topic of trust in regard to building and growing your equine assisted business is multi-faceted and deep.
Like horses, people follow the leader...if they know, like and trust what you are throwing down. In that spirit, do you trust you? Confidence is nothing more than trusting yourself to handle whatever happens.
When you lack confidence in your work and/or offers, that energy ripples throughout your marketing.
What causes confidence to waiver when promoting your equine assisted business?
- Inexperience
- Not knowing how to set the foundational pieces in building your business - like what to charge and how to price services and programs.
- Outdated beliefs.
- Non-supportive inner dialogue that tells you, "you're not good enough" or some other such non-sense.
TRUTH BOMB:
You will promote your equine assisted services only to the level that you are confident and comfortable being seen.
We all (equine assisted practitioners) are deeply passionate about the work with horses because it comes from the heart and soul. It is the purpose on the planet for most of us. Marketing and sales IS NOT a passion for most of us in this profession.
Pricing and sales are pieces of building and marketing your business and THAT is definitely not in the comfort zone. I've heard plenty of equine assisted practitioners loudly proclaim, "I HATE MARKETING!"
Ponder taking a session with the horses:
If you took your marketing and all the energy you have around it into the arena for a session with the horses, what would you expect to happen?
Why?
What patterns are likely to surface? Maybe patterns of procrastination, hesitation, or maybe even avoidance behavior?
Might you notice some discrepencies like wanting to gain clients and yet not building trust within the community of people that would make great clients as they need what the horses are bringing
What shift is needed...what would you rather have happen?
What are you willing to do differently with the new insight?
Here are some tips for connecting and building trust with the audience you wish to build for the horses.
1. Consistently put out information about the challenges your ideal clients experience and how the horses can help them move beyond them. Let your audience know they can trust you are there and will be there to help them.
2. Don't undercharge. You rip the value out of the work in the eyes of your client when you undercharge.
3. Avoid overdelivery. This can over process your client and they actually lose what they were beginning to gain. In case you haven't already figured it out - this also rips value out of the work with horses.
4. Build a pathway to get your ideal clients connected with the horses in a non-threatening and introductory way.
5. Remember, with horses, trust is the foundational component in moving toward you or whomever.
6. In building trust with others, you also build trust in yourself.
Would it be okay if you moved the needle on your confidence meter?
We are bringing more in this area to help you gain trust with yourself- the newest class is about effectively pricing your programs and services. Check out the new Soleful Pricing Master Class Online Training here.