How to Set-Up a Complementary Therapy Business

1 How to Set-Up a Complementary Therapy Business for 100 (or $168) JOHN DIXON 1 | John Dixon This is the and the Beginning Again. Congratulations you ve done it! You ve qualified as a Complementary Therapy Practitioner. No more studying. No more textbooks. No more revising for tests and writing essays. No more pressure of pass or fail. No more kowtowing to teachers and begging for extensions. No more instant ramen. You ve done it. Now take a big sigh of relief. But then what s next? You know what it is. Are you ready for the next big challenge? The challenge of setting up your Business as a Complementary Therapy Practitioner. Although this article is primarily focused on UK practitioners, I hope that some of the principles can be helpful and be adapted by my English speaking cousins in America, Australia and other countries. The details may be different, but the principles are just the same.

2 2 | John Dixon Who d have thought that something like Could end up as something like this: Men (and women) at work Training for a qualification in any Complementary Therapy is more challenging than people realise. Not only does training involve learning many techniques, skills and theoretical knowledge in the Therapy itself. Most courses today involve an understanding of anatomy, physiology, patho-physiology, personal professional development, Business modules, clinical case studies as well as numerous tests and coursework assignments. Most students qualify from their courses feeling extremely relieved but also somewhat shell shocked. For me qualifying from my acupuncture degree left me feeling very bittersweet towards acupuncture. It had been three years of intense study and pressure with so many potential stumbling blocks 3 | John Dixon along the way.

3 When I passed, I was relieved but I also found myself feeling a little uncertain about the next step and whether I was ready for it. And this uncertainty is natural. Qualifying and passing exams is one thing but going into Business as a therapist is a whole new challenge. In the WWII movie Saving Private Ryan , the opening scene shows Tom Hanks leading his platoon of soldiers across the Normandy beaches under heavy fire and explosions. We see bodies dropping, limbs being torn off and soldiers forced to shout to each other over ear-deafening artillery and machine gun fire. It s a nightmarish scene, which seems to go on forever. But it does end and finally Hanks and his men tear down the German fortifications and take control of the beach. The soldiers can finally rest. But then just as all the work is done, Hanks is immediately called up by his superiors and sent off on another mission to find Private Ryan a soldier lost deep in enemy controlled territory.

4 And so even though they have been through hell, there is no time for a break. They must get up again and get on with the next mission. Of course, there is a huge difference between fighting Nazis on the beaches and setting up a Complementary Therapy practice but one thing is the same. Despite brilliantly qualifying in your chosen Therapy , you now have to brush away your weariness and get up again for your next mission setting up your Business . And in some ways the sooner the better because you will still have some momentum you can tap into which you will need. This is because setting up a Business is full of many new challenges. Although the outcome may be uncertain, compared to say passing an exam, it is by far the most fulfilling thing you can do as a therapist. 4 | John Dixon Of course just like Tom Hanks and his platoon, some people will find themselves at this point finding themselves running on empty.

5 They will probably be short on energy and short on funds especially if they had been a full-time student. Perhaps there is very little of the barrel left to scrape. And so it is the purpose of this eBook to give some advice on how it is possible to set up the Complementary Therapy Business with limited funds in other words how to set up a Business for less than 100. That s right how to set up a Complementary Therapy Business for less than 100 (or $168 for Americans). And no doubt as many newly qualified students may be feeling a bit shell shocked after reading countless mind-numbing anatomy books and learning formulas, treatment protocols, remedies or acupuncture points, they may be unwilling or unable to concentrate on anything for more than 3 minutes. So I have kept all the information in this book very simple. And the beauty is this PDF EBook is free.

6 You don t even need to be on my mailing list (I don t have one). So feel free to read it and pass it on and use as you like. All I ask is that if you do use any of the information, please acknowledge the source Can I really do it? Yes, of course 5 | John Dixon A lot of people dream of quitting their jobs and starting their own Business . But the risks and difficulties of quitting a job and stable income and becoming dependent on an unstable and at often times erratic income is enough to prevent people from pursuing this goal, especially if they have dependents or other financial obligations. The biggest concern with setting up a Business is in paying for your daily living costs bills, rent, food and transportation. Generally, salaried jobs pay the immediate bills whereas new businesses usually produce them - particularly for the first two years.

7 Another reason why people don t start their own Business is because of the statistic that most new start-ups go out of Business in the first five years. It s pretty pessimistic and no doubt puts a lot of people off. I think a lot of people in the last thirty years have been brought up with an employee mentality that the safest way is to work for a company and have a fixed monthly salary paid. It seems to me that people brought up by parents who are already Business owners are less influenced by this thinking, but I think that typical schooling and education tend to propagate this way of thinking even more. Interestingly, the sort of people that are more likely to set up their own Business are those with less education the high school drop-outs or those that instead of going to university ending up working instead. The most common small Business owners we come across are plumbers, builders, gardeners and small cleaning or catering Business which hire a handful of people.

8 They are invisible to most people because they are not really what we consider the glamorous professions. They are not the professional, the lawyers, the doctors, the consultants. And yet, what they offer is absolutely essential and in-demand. The Business of setting up as a Complementary practitioner follows many of the same principles of many other small businesses. Here is a simple formula to consider for your Business : 1) Start off simple with limited costs 2) Work hard 3) Get better - build a reputation 4) Survive and reach the breakthrough point where you make a living 5) Expand to a healthy and sustainable level maintain that. A Simple Example When I was younger, I grew up in a house in the countryside. One day a young guy with a car and a ladder on top came around and knocked on all the doors of the houses in my little village. He was a young entrepreneur and was offering a new window cleaner service.

9 He had no professional qualification, no professional training or an MBA. He had no office, no office chair, no fancy uniform, and no Business cards. He had a car with a tank of petrol, a ladder, a sponge cloth and a bucket and he was prepared to work hard promoting himself by driving around, 6 | John Dixon knocking on doors and spreading his profile. He was hired to clean our windows every week and many other houses in the same village. A few months later, a new person started cleaning our windows in his place. His little window cleaning Business had grown and so he had hired a friend to match the extra demand. It is as simple as this. This is what running a Business entails. And this is the same set of principles of setting up a Complementary Therapy Business . Keep it simple, keep the costs low, promote yourself, get better, build a reputation, survive and then reach the breakthrough point (where you will have your next set of challenges).

10 In this PDF, I will run through what some of those first steps are. And the beauty is that it can all be set up for less than 100 Now in writing this PDF, I am making several assumptions. I am assuming that you have already trained and qualified in a Complementary Therapy . I am assuming you have sorted out your insurance and/or paid for professional membership of any relevant organisations. I have assumed that your most basic living needs are taken of. You have a place to live; you have some money in the bank for your basic needs food, bills. I will also assume that as you have qualified and trained as a therapist, that you know how to use a computer and that you have access to a computer, a printer and most importantly the internet. I will assume that you also have a mobile phone as well as stationary, A4 paper and the means to get around.