Are Your Callers Asking the Right Question?

When a person calls to inquire about your services, what’s the first question they usually ask?  “How much?”  Right?

To grow your healing practice, you need results that last.  And to get those results you need to get clients you can be successful with.  Remember, you’re not selling potatoes.  You’re a serious professional providing a unique service.  But they don’t know that yet.

They don’t know what you can do.  Or how you can help them.  They’re just thinking “maybe … hypnosis can help.”

We’ve all been socially conditioned to be savvy shoppers.

It’s just more comfortable to ask, “How much?” than it is to talk about the pain and the problem.  So, before you start talking price, make sure they’re the right client for you.

Remember- they took the time to pick up the phone and call you because they have a problem they can’t fix.  They know they need help with it.  But they’re shopping for a solution.

You may just be the answer they’ve been looking for.  You just need to help them to feel comfortable talking with you about themselves and the problem.

Another question a person might ask is, “How many sessions?” It’s a variation on the “How much?” question.  So here are a few things to think about to help you make sense of things.

1. No two clients are alike.

Even when they have the same symptoms.  That’s because every problem is the result of a life experience.  And the experience causing the problem is unique to the client.

Hypnosis is seldom the first solution most people turn to when they’ve got a problem.  Most of the time they have been through a gauntlet of outer solutions.  So by the time they find you they’re frustrated.  Or depressed over countless failures.

Most of the clients I worked with had been dealing with the problem for twenty years or more.  Some had been struggling with the issue their whole life.  This is pretty typical when it comes to emotional issues.

2. Ordinary everyday people have emotions.

Ordinary, everyday problems are emotional problems.  Emotion is what drives behavior. And emotion is what drives a person to seek help in resolving the problem – it doesn’t feel good.

3. These problems tend to develop over time.

Sometimes they’re the result of one-trial learning.  More often, they’re just a by-product of ordinary, everyday life growing up.  There’s a build-up of unresolved, internal conflicts that eventually finds its way to the surface.

4. Everybody has unresolved stuff from childhood.

Unless there’s an obvious trauma, the average person won’t start to see symptoms of an underlying conflict until mid-life.  It takes that long for the pressure to build up inside.

Human beings are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain.  So it’s only human nature to want to avoid things we don’t like.  The tendency is to ignore the early signs.  And hope they’ll go away.

The problem is that it drives the issue deeper underground.  Then the problem starts inviting a few of its friends over.  And that adds complexity.  And you’re no longer dealing with a simple issue.  So it’s not always going to be a quick fix.

5. Complex issues can take time.

It can take time to resolve all the contributing factors.  Of course they want you to make it all go away in a single session.  Of course they don’t want to throw another dollar at this persistent problem.  Now you’re the one catching flack for all their past failings.  And that’s not your job.

If they’ve been living in hell – they need a way out.  And you can give them that. But it begins with asking the “right questions.”  “How many sessions?” isn’t one of them.

The right questions to ask are – What’s it worth to get rid of the problem?  And – What’s it going to take to create the kind of lasting change they want?

6. Treat the symptoms and you’ll get temporary results.

Address the underlying root cause of the problem and you can pull the roots out completely.  That will get you a lasting result. So what do you want?   A quick fix with a short shelf life?  Or a long-term resolution of the real problem?

Most people want the problem gone for good.  So make sure the caller is asking the right questions.  The way to do this is to do a reality check.

First, get them tuning into the Pain of the Problem.  How much pain is there?  What does life look like if they don’t get this taken care of?

Then get them realizing how long they have been struggling with the problem.

Then do the math.  If the problem has had twenty years to develop, is it reasonable to expect that you can resolve it in an hour or two?

The way I see it – what’s a handful of hours if that’s what it’s going to take to finally be free?

It all comes down to you because you have a significant investment in acquiring the knowledge and skill needed to be able to help a person.  You’re heavily invested in guiding them to make peace with the past.

You’re invested in healing.  And your investment should never be greater than the clients.