Business, Marketing. Legals and Ethics are just as important as your coaching, healing or therapeutic skills but many training establishments are omitting these essentials more and more as they design more and more fast track training, aimed at bigger profits rather than quality training an quality students. 

Business Skills; 

More and more business don’t even get off the ground in the first year simply because they don’t understand the basic principles of building a business. And the fact you have to financially invest in your business and your marketing not just your skills. I recently did an anonymous survey for holistic practitioners and the results were alarming in-fact, most business spent nothing or less than £50 in 6 months yes 6 months not even monthly and they couldn’t understand why their business wasn’t growing or not working.

Marketing; 

With a rise on social media platforms and usage over the last 5 years more and more businesses seriously think they can just show up on social media and that is enough. A/ Many are actually using the wrong social media platforms for their audience B/ Most don’t really know who their audience is C/ Even more just simply copy what they think other’s are doing randomly posting anything and everything or D/ They simply try to SELL, SELL, SELL..nott realising social media is about connection, trust, relevance, entertainment…

Legals and Ethics; 

Here in the UK many healers and therapist are shockingly unaware of their duty of care in relation to health and safety despite seriously wanting to be recognised as a health professional. And many are under insured, practicing or teaching modalities they aren’t fully qualified in. If you believe your client’s care should come first; even when your only starting out and only have a few clients around a full-time job, it important to have insurance to cover many possibilities you can never even imagine could happen to your business or your clients health and safety. 

Make sure you follow the National Occupational Health & Safety Standards, check for for updates.

If you want to be ethical and professional make sure Indemnity Insurance is on ALL the therapies, classes and training you practice (ensure you are fully qualified in everything you practice including teaching and training). Choose and insurance policy that will include all eventualities including accidents at your or the clients premises that you never ever consider may happen. Threatened legal action is more common than many therapists realise. I personally know one healer who was not allowed to practice reiki again due to having no insurance after an incident where a woman claimed she permanently injured her back while this therapist helped her get off her massage couch.

Never make claims your treatment or therapy can cure specific ailments, this is illegal. You may say can help, can aid, can reduce, can support, can help eliminate….

Make sure all equipment is safe; updated and electrically safe, get yearly PAT testing. Check high risk products like brands of hopi ear candles are up to safety standards.

Never use any photos or images you find on facebook, pinterest, google unless you get them from a website that states clearly they are free for business use. You can now buy images very cost effectively so there is no excuses. Promotional marketing images used to be very expensive I had to pay £90 for a marketing image which now would only cost approx. £1-$1. I used to design websites for others and on 3 occasions I was served with legal action with a demand for £2000 over images they stated were royalty free but weren’t. I had to legally fight these three separate incidents which were extremely stressful and time consuming. 

If you play relaxation music in any of your sessions, classes, no matter if it is in your clients or your home you have to have a PRS License or only use royalty free music. I know two fitness teachers who were served with a hefty fine because they were playing music in their fitness class without a license.

Make sure your Business Trading Name is not someone else’s trademark. It is illegal to name your business after a patented trademark.

Choose wisely any products you sell or pass on to your clients. Companies make bold claims; particularly mlm companies in the herbal, supplement and nutritional industry, when the truth is many products are not 100% safe for all clients. Specifically with clients with certain health conditions. I am always shocked at how many combination herbal remedies and supplements are classed as completely balanced, safe and suitable for everybody, be very wary, these are simply heavy unethical sales tactics. Everyone has different body types, different allergies, different needs, different challenges so will respond differently.

Before attending any training/certification to be a qualified…check if this training will be recognised, approved and up to the level you require. Who is your training organisation registered with? Will you be able to get insurance, will you be able to practice legally and safely, will you get enough training to feel qualified ?