Ep 68, Stop Selling What You Do

The best wellness practitioners are often the worst marketers. And it's costing them. 

If you're a breathwork facilitator, chiropractor, nutritionist, somatic practitioner, yoga teacher, or any kind of wellness pro watching less-skilled people fill rooms and charge premium prices while you struggle to enrol clients, this episode is for you. The work isn't the problem. The way you're packaging and articulating it is. 

In this episode, Emma breaks down why depth doesn't sell itself, the positioning shift that turns your craft into a scalable offer, and how to build visibility and collaboration strategies that don't require you to hustle on social media all day. Plus, why your energy is part of your marketing whether you realise it or not. 

In this episode: 

- Why the most skilled practitioners get out earned by louder, shallower marketers 

- Selling desires and outcomes instead of modalities and sessions 

- How to package your work into offers that scale beyond 1:1 

- Visibility and collaboration strategies that don't require constant hustle 

- Why your energy IS your marketing (and how to use that) 

📩 SPECIAL LISTENER OFFER: DM Emma the word "POSITIONED" on Instagram (@emmamaidment_) and she'll personally send you her initial thoughts on your positioning. No funnel, no form, just real feedback on how to articulate what you do so the right people pay for it. 

🚀 WORK WITH EMMA: Soulful Strategy Session → https://go.flowstatescollective.com/soulful-strategy-session

#theflowlane #wellnesspractitioner #breathwork #somaticcoach #wellnessbusiness #positioning #scalableoffer #femaleentrepreneur #freedombusiness 

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Em x

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That selling is actually clarity and it is an invitation. I want you to see selling as an act of service. Just in the same way that you serve your clients by treating them to your modality that you offer. You are helping the right people find their way into the right offer in order to get the outcome that they desire. That is an act of service. Welcome to the Flow Lane with me, Emma Maple. This podcast is for the female entrepreneurs who want the both end big goals and a life that you can actually enjoy. We're talking sustainable scaling, working in flow, and creating a business that supports your energy, not trades it. Let's dive in. Stop selling what you do and start selling what people get. That is what we are diving into today, my friends, because I see this all too often. People don't buy modalities or sessions or stress relief. They buy a desired version of their life. So if you're struggling to sell, it's probably not because you're not good at what you do. It's because you're selling the wrong thing. So no one actually buys nervous system regulation. They buy feeling calm when their kid is having a total meltdown. They like the wellness industry as a whole, and something that I've been a part of for a very long time, really, really struggles with this. Because the best practitioners are often the worst marketers. And it ultimately costs them. And I've seen this over 15 years in the wellness industry is that the people that are so good at what they do struggle to actually communicate and sell what they do, and they lose out to the people that have less depth, less experience than them, but can articulate clearly the outcome that the person is getting, and therefore they sign up to their programs. So let's put this into an example. I have a client who is an incredible breathwork facilitator, has been doing it for over a decade, amazing at what she does, and could not fill a room. And then she's comparing herself to the 21-year-old breathwork bros who are getting a thousand people to go and do breath work on a beach. And she's like, I have more experience than them. I have all these things. Why aren't I getting the same turnout? I'm doing essentially the same thing on paper. Hers probably has more depth. But because they understand marketing positioning vibes, and she's over here being like, here's why you should regulate your nervous system and nobody cares. So we're going to talk about this shift from selling features to actually selling desires and outcomes, how to actually position yourself so that you can actually charge more without feeling any ick about that, how to package your work into offers that scale, not just sessions. I want you to really listen to that part. And then visibility, collaboration, strategies that don't actually require any hustle, and really helping you understand that your energy is part of your marketing. So how do we actually protect that so that you can show up as your magnetic self? So why does this actually matter to you? Firstly, it's not your fault that you're bad at marketing. You didn't get a marketing degree. You became a healer, a breath worker, a service provider, a nutritionist, a naturopath, whatever it is that you, Chinese medicine doctor, whatever it is that you went and studied and did, that's what you went and did. You became a yoga teacher, whatever. You didn't become a marketer. So please don't feel bad about yourself because you were trained to be excellent at delivery, not sales. And selling often feels cringe because you kind of associate it with manipulation. You associate it with the tactics and things that you often see online. I want you to reframe that in your brain that selling is actually clarity and it is an invitation. I want you to see selling as an act of service. Just in the same way that you serve your clients by treating them to your modality that you offer. You are helping the right people find their way into the right offer in order to get the outcome that they desire. That is an act of service, not sales and pushy as the way that most people have it in their heads. Because ultimately, when you start leading with what you do, not what it actually changes for somebody else, that becomes a real deal breaker for a lot of people because we think, hi, I'm a Chinese medicine practitioner, I do this, I do this, I do this. And the client's like, well, I have this issue, I have this problem over here that I'd like solved. How do I know that you're the person that can actually solve that? Because right now you've just listed your credentials. And so they'll go with someone who's selling a hormone rejuvenation practice that does blah, blah, blah, because that they see that as having solved their problem, even though you might be far better at what it is that they're offering. So if you're in this situation, I want you to remember you're not bad at business, you just haven't actually been taught to describe your work like an actual job title. You haven't actually been taught how to sell yourself. So there's a big difference between features and desires. You think that you sell stress reduction, hormone balancing, breath work, coaching, whatever it is that you sell, but what do people actually buy? Better sleep, confidence at work, patience with their kids, feeling safe in their body, energy to actually live their life. Those are the things that they're actually wanting to buy. No one wakes up and just says, I want to buy a hormone balance. They go, I have acne all over my face and I would like to do something about that, right? So people buy the felt experience and the identity shift. The person with acne wants to feel ultimately confident in their skin. They want to feel beautiful when they look in front of the mirror. They want to feel like I'm glowing from the inside out. So your job is actually then just transferring your genius into client language. So stop selling sessions and start selling transformations. If you are selling now only per session, you are stuck with inconsistent income, constant marketing to try and get leads to come in, and then that idea of like, where is my next client actually coming from? When you switch to having packages or containers, you're actually creating a start all the way through to finish journey for your client. Now that makes results actually more likely for them, which boosts your referrals, which boosts your confidence in the process, which makes the whole thing run in flow. And it also gives structure and boundaries and an energetic ROI for you. So instead of chasing that one-off client that comes in for one session and maybe gets a result, you have an actual clear package. So people actually don't want options, they want certainty. So I'm gonna give you an example of what this actually looks like. So if you're in the wellness space, for example, three sessions, right, that you sell becomes reset your sleep in 21 days as a container. If you have a monthly one-on-one, it's the calm CEO container, and that's part of it. If you're selling breathwork classes, it becomes nervous system rebuild for high performers. It's the same thing. You're just packaging it up differently, switching the delivery, getting better results for your clients, making more money for yourself, and everybody wins. So how does this look in tangible terms? Well, to give you an example of a client that I've worked with who it happens all the time with so many people that come to me, they're stuck in that session of one-to-one. So this particular client was a Chinese medicine doctor, and she had a particular knack for getting people pregnant. She was really good at it. And what would happen though is a woman would come to her in that first session and she would over-deliver, right? She'd be like, Oh, we need to look at your bloods, we need to look at this, we need to da-da-da, you need all these herbs. She would give them all this stuff in like a what,$80 session, and then the treatment. And the woman would leave, being like, wow, I feel like I have enough here to hold me for a really long time. Thanks so much. I'll book in again when I'm ready. And so then the practitioner has given away all of these things that's gonna help this woman. She may or may not ever see her again. And that woman, unless she actually commits to that plan, is not gonna see the results. So we switched it. We said, okay, you're really good at this, and people aren't gonna get pregnant necessarily after one session. Somebody who has a deep desire to fall pregnant is often willing to invest in that process. And if they've been on a fertility journey, they know it's a long, it's a long journey, and it's probably also going to involve their partner. So we created a package which went for three or six months. They could kind of choose depending on where they're at, they wanted to do preconception or not. But that actually included a certain amount of treatments, a certain amount of telehealth conversations and actually having, you know, a quick check-in with the practitioner of like, hey, I'm taking this, this is how it's feeling, or this is what's going on with my period this month. So the client felt like, wow, I have a space of someone that's actually kind of there for me and supporting me that is so valuable. And then she was able to charge a lot more money to have those people come in to that experience. They were getting better results and she was actually working less because she wasn't trading time for money. She had a whole IP system, she had different things like breath work. She was also a yoga teacher. So she had yoga practices they could do to support their overall goal of falling pregnant, her fertility bundle, right? So if you start thinking of it like that, it's a better experience for everyone involved. But in order to be able to charge more, you have to position yourself accordingly. People often get shocked to hear that when I was a yoga teacher, I would charge$5,000 to go into organizations and talk to them about the nervous system, stress, and share meditation and mindfulness and yogic practices with them. Their jaws fall on the floor. They're like, Are you kidding me? My corporate rate is like$50 per class. But I didn't position myself as a yoga teacher. I positioned myself as a wellness expert and I had the receipts to back all of that up. So I didn't also tie the outcome to my time in the room or what they were going to get. I built a whole package around it. So I come in and I give this presentation and we go through, you know, whatever it is in the room. And then there's aftercare. The people get access to some prerecorded meditations that were designed specifically for them. They actually are able to implement the stuff that we talk about. So it doesn't just become some lady came into our workplace and spoke to us. It becomes, oh, this is a program that has actually shifted our entire corporate, you know, um culture and ties into their wellness objective ROIs and all that kind of stuff. People have budget for it, they'll pay for it. So because I was positioned in that way, I wasn't just going in and teaching a yoga class or running a breathwork group, I was actually offering something of high value. So I was getting paid a higher amount for my time. And then I had a whole package of transformation that I was selling for that price point. So pricing isn't just numbers, it's context and language and audience. So if you're pricing like a freelancer, you'll live like one. If you understand how to premiumly position yourself and price accordingly, you will get paid accordingly. So the other kind of point to this is looking at collaboration as a strategy to help fuel all of this along. So often where you're at is you're like, but I'm just a practitioner, I'm just a yoga teacher, I'm just a Chinese medicine person. Like, who am I? You can actually look at the world around you and leverage that strategically in collaborations. Often growth doesn't come from going it alone, it actually comes from aligned partnerships, sharing audiences, and building community momentum. So, an example of this is many, many years ago I ran an event series called Mindful Mornings. Now, this was towards the beginning of my yoga teaching career or at the point where I was actually kind of taking it seriously and wanted to be seen as a leader in that space. So I created my own room to lead from. Every month we would have 80 bodies in the room. We would do yoga, we would meditate, we would have live music throughout the whole thing. So we'd feature a different musician each time, and we'd have a beautiful breakfast in a stunning luxury venue. It was such a vibe. That event grew and we consistently felt the room filled the room because we collaborated. I was extremely strategic about pulling in really, really high-calibre teachers to collaborate with. So I would either teach the yoga or the meditation, I'd kind of switch between the two and host the event. So I was able to collaborate. That person would bring their community into the space. They would also realize, wow, this event series is amazing. I want to be a part of this community. And we were able to really leverage and grow that really quickly and sustainably by partnering with other people. So it's the same in your industry. There are people out there, there are rooms you can create to collaborate with. Maybe you want to run a seminar with a few other practitioners that elevates your brand by sitting next to them on a panel, but you're providing the space and the room for them to have access to other people. It kind of goes both ways. And so ultimately, the kind of key principles of that are firstly, if you're collaborating with someone, for example, in Mindful Mornings, we paid our collaborators. We made sure it wasn't just like, hey, come collab with us, we're going to take your time. We were a business. So we were like, you're going to get paid. And here's the expectations as part of that being paid, you have to share it on your social media, like all that kind of stuff. So it was actually paid. But if you're not in a position to pay or it's not part of your strategy, make sure it's clear what they get. A lot of people will come in and speak at an event or be part of what you're doing if they're going to get content. If you actually pay to have a content creator in the room and say, we don't have the budget to pay you for this, however, we will have someone doing content and you will get the da-da-da-da out of it. That's valuable to someone. So make sure that there's like actually a clear exchange taking place and then spotlight the people that you're collaborating with. Don't just make it uh, I'm trying to get myself famous by hanging off to this other person. Actually spotlight them, actually celebrate them in your community because it also elevates your positioning within that space and then make it a win-win ecosystem. So everyone is supported, everybody wins, everybody gets something out of it, whether that be monetarily or through an exchange, whatever it is, it's win-win. That is true collaboration that elevates your brand, that elevates your positioning in the marketplace, and it ultimately means you can then go on to charge a lot more. And then you're not just the practitioner, you are a brand. You are seen as a leader in your community, which then commands a higher price tag. So always, little hack from doing something like that, always have the thing that you're going to sell next ready before the current one ends. So when you're on that panel, when you're running the event, have the next event ready or the next call to action there. This is a missed opportunity that I see happen all the time. I have so many clients that run trainings in the yoga space or breathwork, Pilates, and they'll have a room full of, you know, 30 people there to do a training, and they just won't mention their upcoming retreat or the level two version of that training, and they'll wait till maybe, oh yeah, maybe I should send an email.

unknown 14:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Have the thing ready, have some sort of offer. We used to do this with Mindful Mornings all the time. Hey, our next event is coming up next month. You can book your ticket now and you'll get a little bit of a discount or you get some sort of bonus. Always have that next step ready for people to opt straight into. So that you're like harnessing that momentum. So the other side to this is looking at visibility as a whole. If you're only on Instagram, then ultimately you're optional. That's the harsh truth because there's a lot of people out there that say pick one platform and go all in and like have that be your one thing. I think that is a terrible idea. Instagram is one room in a huge building. If you actually expand your visibility where you're able to then borrow credibility, you create this ecosystem of visibility that further elevates your brand. Podcasts, articles, speaking, YouTube, niche platforms like Insight Timer, for example. If you are in the health and wellness space, you should be on that app. They are the biggest, I can't remember the amount of uh people that they have on that app, but they are the biggest meditation and mindfulness app in the world. They have like, I want to say like millions, but it's a lot of people on that app. And that is you, for most of you, that is your niche, that is your people, and you're like, oh, I just can't be bothered making a free meditation to upload on there to be in front of all of these people. Because you're on, let's just use Instagram as an example, because you're on Instagram and it's filled with Instagram coaches that are preaching about how to grow on Instagram and how you're gonna blow up your business by growing on Instagram. Yes, it's important. Don't delete the app, but don't have that be your only strategy. Particularly now in the age of AI and automations, where you can so easily cross-post content. Even before social media, and this is really showing my age, when I first started in like PR and marketing, I once had a lecturer say to me, one piece of content a hundred different ways. And it really, really resonated because so many people are spending six hours on one freaking Instagram reel and then wasting a bunch of time having that go out and off it goes, rather than actually having a strategy that that compounds over time. So I want you to think strategically about your visibility because that also enhances your ability for people to find you, particularly if you're wanting to work in a more high-ticket space. Maybe your people are on LinkedIn. Maybe the people that want to get pregnant are stressed out corporate executives who are looking for an acupuncturist to help them achieve their goal and they're over there on LinkedIn and you're over here stressing about reels. So get strategic and get expand your visibility. That doesn't mean you have to burn yourself out trying to be everywhere. Pick the places that your people are and be there strategically. If you want to be perceived as a leader, you have to actually show up where leaders already are. So where are the leaders in your industry? Go and be where they are. And I guarantee you, they are in multiple places. They are not just doing one channel. So the other, and the kind of like final or second last point of this is looking at your embodiment and making sure that your energy is a part of the offer. So if you work in the calm/slash health repair sort of space, but your life is literally in chaos, people can feel that. So it doesn't mean that you have to be perfect because nobody is, but there needs to be congruency. You need to actually realize that embodiment builds trust way more than branding. So you can have the beautiful, fancy B-roll and whatever it is, but if you show up and people can feel like, wow, this woman feels really stressed and franticed, and I'm not going to learn to meditate with her because she is not embodying what she's teaching, and there's friction there. So alignment is actually the marketing strategy because that's what makes you magnetic. So that means that maybe you share a little bit. I always recommend to share from the wound. Sorry, the scar, never the wound. Let's make sure that's very clear. Share from the scar, never the wound. But it means that you need to be showing that you embody what it is that you teach, what it is that you're preaching, because that actually attracts people into you. And it also helps keep your energy in check so you don't just run into this franticness. I cannot tell you how many people that come to me that are so stressed out and they sell stress relief. That's their job, is to help people not be stressed. They teach meditation, they teach yoga, whatever it is, and they are grinding. And I get it because that was me as well. Like I was the most stressed out when I was teaching yoga full time. How ironic is that? When you can take a step back and actually embody yourself in your work, it comes through in your marketing. So your nervous system is kind of ultimately doing the selling for you, or it's leaking doubt into everything. And that's when your marketing becomes not magnetic at all and it feels forced and awkward and just like no one wants that. The final thing we need to talk about here that's probably gonna make you uncomfortable is money, money, money. It is the number one topic that I feel that most people in this space avoid, or we just go hashtag abundance. Oh my god. So numbers tell the truth, right? And if you want to live in flow without finances, that is just avoidance, my friend. The high ticket side of this and everything that I'm saying looks shiny. You're like, that makes sense. I could sell, you know, a$50 session, I could put that into a package and da da da da, and I could package that up, and that's a$5,000 package. Amazing. But I also want you to be actually clear on the costs, the time, the emotional labor. Like, do you know the margins on that? So many people create a package and they charge two, two, two, two, two, because like angel numbers, but they have no idea if that's actually profitable. They have no idea because they're like, oh, but it's just like it's only three sessions and all this other stuff. Yeah, the other stuff matters. Your costs in business matter. You need to know those numbers, and you avoiding them is not gonna make them grow. It's just gonna make it worse. So, sustainability is actually knowing. It's it's looking at the bank account, it's looking at the back end of the budget to make sure if it actually makes sense. I have people that come to work with me that are earning multiple six figures in their business on paper, and they have no idea if they're actually profitable. They're getting to the end of the year and going, I earned all this money and I have like a third of that to show for it. Like what happened? Because they're not in control of their expenses. They're just seeing, well, sales are coming in and my course is worth$5,000 and I make a bunch of sales and like, yay, go me, but they're not across the costs and where they're leaking money in their business. So, what is profitable? What actually drains you and what scales cleanly? So, when you're building out this package, when you're shifting from selling, you know, what it is that you do to what people actually get when you're selling the transformation, you need to also understand all these things because revenue ultimately kind of is vanity. Prof profit and energy is where your sanity lives. There are a lot of people that make a lot of revenue and very little profit. And on in the the age of I just made like$10,000 today on the internet or like hashtag 50k month, is that profit? Is that sales? Is that your actual like take home cash? We see these big numbers that people are flashing around, and often you forget that maybe their ad spend is like, you know, way up there. Maybe they've only actually made a few grand that month because they spent so much time on money on their team or their ads or whatever it is. So know that within yourself. Be really clear on the difference between revenue, which is a vanity metric, and profit and energy, which is actually going to give you back your sanity. So the stop selling what you do framework is where we're going to wrap this up because I want you to remember this and I've broken it down into five really simple steps. Number one, desire. What do they want? Number two, the outcome. What actually changes when they come into your offer? Then the identity. Who do they become? Everybody loves the identity upgrade. Who are they on the other side of that transformation? Number four, the container. How do you actually deliver it? What makes sense for your modality? Does it need to be in person? Can it be online? Can it be a hybrid? You need to be really clear on what that container looks like to get your client the best results. Because it isn't just about making money, it's also about making an impact and actually transforming people's lives. And then number five, the proof. Why would someone trust you? How are you stacking the receipts? Now, a great way to do this is to actually run a pilot program or to have people come in, you know, that maybe they're paying a little bit less and you're testing it out on them to actually stack the testimonials and the proof within yourself that you know this works. Because to use to come back to the example of the Chinese medicine doctor, it was only after she saw the results that people were getting, having worked with her for a long period of time, that three month minimum, that it clicked. Oh, when people work with me for this amount of time and they do these steps, they get this outcome, which gives them better results, bada bang, bada boom, then she has the receipts backing her up to then be able to ultimately tell people why they can trust her because this has worked for X amount of clients. People are then able to see, okay, she's had success in this, I therefore trust her, I'm in. So if you're still selling your individual sessions as your only goal, it's not gonna scale. If you build a brand, if you have very clear aligned offers that are scalable, you can actually have a very abundant business that supports your lifestyle and you get to do what you love, helping people in the modality that you've chosen to train for or be a part of. So if this resonated, I would love to hear from you about how it is that you're actually positioning yourself in your space. And I'm gonna do something that I may or may not regret. But if you jump on over to Instagram, I'm gonna put the link below. I poo-pooed Instagram, but I'm there. I love it there. I'm not saying you shouldn't be there, you should also just be in other places. If you DM me the word positioned on Instagram, then I'm gonna tell you the first thing I would change in your offer language. I'm gonna take a quick look at your page and I'm gonna give you a little tiny blurb about what I think you should change. And if you're up for that, then I dare you to come over there and DM me and we'll have a chat because I wanna help you help more people. That is the mission that I am on in this world. When more heart-centered people that are out there every day changing the world, impacting clients' lives, when they understand this stuff, when they're earning more money, when they're more visible, when they're the ones that are going viral, when they're the ones that are on the stages, the whole world shifts for the better. So I want to use my powers for good to empower you to go out there and rock your brand, rock your business, and change the freaking world. So I'll see you in my DMs and I'll be back here with you really soon.