Why Staying in the Practitioner Bubble Will Keep You Unheard [Ep #195]

In this episode, I’m going to pop the practitioner bubble because staying in it is keeping you unheard and keeping you playing small. Stay tuned. 

Hey guys! It’s Andrea here. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the podcast. And what I really want to help you all do is to break out of what I call the practitioner bubble and really lean into your messaging. Really lean in to your magic as a practitioner because this is what I think, is that we all graduate from school but we’re graduating with this indoctrinated and unsustainable vision of how we must behave as licensed practitioners. And it’s this that I call the practitioner bubble, where you know you’re totally safe, everyone’s drinking the same cool aide as you. But what this bubble is doing is it’s completely holding you back and it’s also keeping you unheard in the sea of all the people that are tapping into the same health industry as you are. And I mean, I totally get it. We were taught to speak a certain language, we were taught to remain very stoic and professional. And then there’s this inherent indoctrinated fear that if we step outside of that quote on quote ideal practitioner persona. That means we’re going to get flagged, we’re going to get called out, we’re going to get our colleagues to troll us online. And then of course our biggest fear is being reprimanded by our licensing board or our governing body and then all of our career choices and decisions and our paths to getting us here is for nothing. 

But I want you to look at Alicia McPherson for an example. She has been on the podcast twice and you can learn more about her journey literally over the past couple of years on episode 137 and 177. And just last year she grew her business to 7-figures, really in like the second half of last year. And currently has over 30 thousand followers on Instagram and she’s done this over the past 2 years by fully embracing her messaging and magnetism specifically towards high performing women. And what is it that Alicia’s doing? Well, she’s a completely a licensed practitioner, she’s embraced her license, and she uses content that continuously reinforces the identity of her avatar and shifts their perspective on treating hormonal health in a way that maybe they haven’t heard before or seen before. But what she’s doing is she’s connecting with her audience, women to women. She’s always sharing her beliefs, her values, her marriage, her home life, and her dogs. And she’s doing it unwaveringly so. 

This is exactly what I work on with our maximized practitioner members and our elite members is to help them maximized on their messaging. Because no more than ever before, especially now on the past couple of years with the pandemic and everything shutting down. Everyone is going virtual, everyone is going online, everyone is double downing on social media. And sure, you’re probably posting every day, multiple times a day and I bet it makes you feel accomplished. Like yes, I checked that off my to-do list today, I did what I was supposed to do, I showed up on social but I bet you’re also noticing that despite effort, despite the Canva templates, and despite everything looking like it’s on brand, and it’s gorgeous and you’re Instagram tile feed is beautiful. You’re not getting the engagement that you deserve. And a lot of that is because usually what you are posting is exactly what everybody else is posting. And who I mean by everybody else is everybody else who is still inside this practitioner bubble. It could be just like info graphics quotes, you might be talking about gut health which we all are. You might be talking about lifestyle changes that people need to make, you might be posting inspirational quotes or tips on exercise. And sure a few people may look at it, you might get a few likes here or there. But if your messaging isn’t on point, if there isn’t an emotional connection that you are making with your image, with your copy with everything that it is that you’re posting and it is consistently so then you are not going to get those likes and followers and most importantly the bookings. Because I tried to reinforce this with all of my students that we aren’t doing any of this work to show boat, to gain the followers, to be an influencers. We are not putting all of this effort in and all of this energy into marketing ourselves for the sake of checking the to-do list and hopefully getting influencers status. 

The whole reason we are on social media, the whole reason we are sending out emails, the whole reason why we’re upgrading our website pages is to get bookings. Is to actually make an impact on people and one thing that I will know is that it is I you don’t know who’s looking at your content often times were following, or chasing the metrics, or the likes, the hearts, the followers. And I will continuously get old patients from years and years and years ago who I don’t even see them engaging with any of my stuff reaching back out to me through PMs, DMs, emails, or just booking themselves in off our site to continuously get that support for me. Even new people that will say ‘hey I’ve been following you for a while and now I’m ready to take that step.’ You just don’t know and it isn’t fair to always be chasing the social media metrics, but what will say is the more you will lean into maximizing you’re messaging by showing up and explaining and wholeheartedly putting yourself out there. Whole heartedly standing up for your beliefs, wholeheartedly standing up for your values and talking to that one person. That is when you are going to win.

Again, the practitioner bubble automatically dictates that we can’t share our story, we can’t be personable, and we can’t be “human”. It’s very robotic going through school, we’re just put through the conveyer belt of education and we’re spit out like everybody else. But it is your magic, it is your story, you are the struggling avatar, you have been where the struggling avatar is now. And by struggling avatar what I mean is that those are the people that are raising their hands, they are drowning in that ocean and they want help. It does need to be yacht, it could be a dingy, it could be you swimming out and grabbing them but what they are looking for is someone that they trust someone that they feel that they know, someone who they are essentially trusting with their lives and the lives of their family members. So when you tell your story, when you tell your journey, when you tell about the struggles that you are having right now or the struggles that you have experienced. And if you’re struggling with coming up with content, if you’re struggling with coming up with what to say to start engaging your struggling avatar that person who you want to work with. Then you really need to start listening internally; what are your people posting, ask questions in Facebook groups, what are your people saying to you in office  when you ask them why did you book the appointment today? What are your health concerns? And continue to probe them; why is that important? What is it about weight loss that’s really important to you? And dig deeper. 

And what I do is I keep a post it right next to my computer, and I will write down key phrases that I hear my patients saying and I will actually use that in my content. Or I will have a really great breakthrough story with a patient visit and I’ll even say ‘hey do you mind if I take elements of this interaction that we’re having today and share that in a live later on this week.’ Of course keeping confidentiality and all of that, just sharing the essence of the story. More often than not, they’re fine with that. So I personally believed that content creation should not be auto-scheduled, should not be copied and pasted from a program you purchased for $9 or just regurgitated from some templates that you found. You need to be sitting and be present in the moment when you’re writing these things. So you could certainly auto-schedule post for like a week or month but when you are writing them you have to be so present, you have to be literally connecting with that struggling avatar and speaking to them saying ‘you, I get you. I remember being like you, this was my struggle. Do you remember what this was like? Or is this what you’re struggling with now?’ 

The more you get into their head and the more you speak to them, the more people are going to reach out to you. The more people are going to want to book in with you, the more people are going to follow you for a really long time and eventually you will be the person that they count to when they’re ready. Because it’s all about timing and messaging is all about timing. But here’s the other key piece to this entire conversation is mastering messaging, mastering copywriting it’s a muscle that you have to train and you have to exercise and you have to do it on the daily to really get comfortable with it. But here’s the other problem that I see a lot of practitioners doing is that they just randomly pick things based on the theme of the month. Like if it’s February, it’s cardiovascular month. So if you think if you jump on the band wagon for cardiovascular disease, that’s going to get you more people. Or for instance, we have naturopathic medicine week, and if you think you jump on the naturopathic medicine bandwagon and talk about how great the profession is, that’s going to get you more people. 

I want you to focus on you and your business and stay in your lane. Do not get distracted by the events of the month or the theme of the week. If you are focused on auto-immune diseases then you only talk about auto-immune. If you are focused on pleasure and sex health and all of that like Jordan Wiggin says, then you only focus on talking about pleasure and sex health. If you are focused on hormone balances and weight loss like Alicia is, well then you only focus on those high performing women who want to reboot their metabolism, lose weight, and rebalance their hormones. You stay in your lane and this is where, and I love doing this is probably the thing that Jazzes me up the most when I work with our elite level members is creating a branded protocol. And this where you’re going to either make it generalized but you have the unique acronym to it. We have GAT protocol, or you’re going to pick up a health niche, like we have one member who has the Everglow program. Which is to help women over 40 regain their glow or maintain their glow as they age, keep ageless. Or you may have your own weight loss solution, another elite member has the Saratoga weight loos solution. So this becomes your branded protocol, your niche so to speak but the coolest thing is, is you’ve carved out this niche. No one can touch you that branded protocol is yours. No one has heard of it before and this is when you start to stand out, this is when social media really becomes fun and easy. And this is when you’re going to love what you do, it’s going to reignite your passion for your profession. It’s going to reignite your love for going on social, telling your story because all going to have a purpose now. And the chaos immediately goes away, because now everything is funneled around this branded protocol that you’ve created. 

And now, now that you have created your own ecosystem that you are targeting your people into your world based on your beliefs your core values, your opinions, your take on things, your ability as a man, a woman, a naturopath, an osteopath, an RMT. Whatever profession you are, now you’re going to get the engagement that you’re looking for. And if you’re willing to spend a little bit even a couple of dollars a day with Facebook ads, not boosting, but with engagement ads and traffic ads and things like that. You’ll be able to take that message to thousands of people every day, every week, instead of the perhaps 50 to 100 people you’re getting with organic reach. And that’s what I want for you. 

Time is the biggest thing I covet, I will pay people to do things so I can conserve more time. I will delete things from my life so I can have more time and I’m going to put that whole gift on to you too. Where if you’re going to do something, let’s make it worthwhile, if you’re going to put your time which is I believe to be your biggest currency that you have in your life, if you’re going to use it, if you’re going to spend it on something then make sure that it’s worth it. Make sure that it lights you up, make sure that you know when you put a post out there you’re going to engage people. You’re going to have people reaching up their hands and saying I want you to help me. If I can support you at all, I want you to reach out. I have a 60 min training that you can go watch where I talk about the importance of maximizing your messaging, I talk about the mistakes that most practitioners are making and how they can use these platforms, these tools, these things I’m talking about to help them merge online or really grow online with their business or practice. I would love for you to download the maximized practitioner method handbook which talks more about the success blocks. And going through the pillars of the maximized practitioner program with foundational experience, attracting your first and best 100 people. Your business essentials, you modernized marketing which is exactly where the messaging comes in. And then I would love for you to reach out to me personally, DM me @andreamaximnd. I’m always available for you, I’m always waiting for you to reach out, extend your hand. Because if I’m connecting with you and you’ve listened to my other shows and you think I’m the right fit, you think I’m the right mentor for you then let’s get started. I don’t want you to wait, again, don’t waste time when we can start doing things now. I’m Andrea Maxim and I’m out.