Roadmap for Nurses: Get Your First (or Next) 10 Clients without Wasting Your Time, Money, or Energy

Learn the necessary principles to start a sustainable nurse coaching, consulting, or healing arts business. The Liberated Nurse Entrepreneur Roadmap is grounded in the nursing process, the Standford Design Thinking process, and the stages of business development.

Sharon Burch, MSN, APRN, PHCNS-BC, APHN-BC, HWNC-BC, presented this webinar to help nurses start sustainable businesses. Click here for a summary of the main points: https://bit.ly/4f4k8M0

Business Development Stages
Sharon discussed the different stages of business development and their significance in attracting clients. She underscored the importance of understanding each stage, noting that most resources are geared towards later stages, while the early stages lack support. She shared her experiences and advised listeners to identify their current and desired future business stages. Sharon also explained that personalized, one-on-one services are more effective in the early stages. As the business progresses, group programs can be added, eventually leading to a full suite of products at different price points.

First Step to Getting Clients
Sharon advised seeking to understand our audience's problems and inquiring how the individuals would like their lives to be different, emphasizing the importance of empathy, healing presence, and active listening when learning about the people we want to serve. Sharon recommended that nurses start by identifying a niche audience and understanding its members' wants. She offered a 2-part exercise to help listeners describe their niche effectively.

Niche Testing
The next step is niche testing, which helps nurses determine whether they understand their niche, whether listeners understand it, and where to find their audience. It requires talking to as many people as possible, sharing one's niche description, and ending with two questions: "Do you know anyone like this?" and "Where do you think are good places to reach these people?"

Pilot Testing
Pilot testing verifies whether people will pay for your service and provides valuable feedback that helps you refine your program or package of services to better fit you and your audience. It involves offering a low-cost, minimal service to 10 clients, getting their feedback, and analyzing results to improve the program or service.

Marketing Strategies for Nurses

Marketing is making your offer visible and inviting potential clients to take action that gives them what they're looking for. Sales helps potential clients find out if your program or service fits them and, if so, invites them to buy it. Marketing and sales testing help nurses identify which marketing methods reach their audience efficiently while fitting the nurse’s personality, resources, and limitations.

Sharon encouraged nurses to maintain a strong nursing identity and ethics while working in their business and to practice trauma-informed marketing. Trauma-informed marketing and sales involve being respectful, transparent, and moving forward only with informed consent. It requires staying present with each person and, contrary to conventionally accepted business practices, NOT using people's emotional triggers to pressure or manipulate them into buying from you. Sharon recommends nurses test a variety of marketing strategies and track their results to ensure predictable revenue.

5-Step Process to Attract Clients
1. Have conversations with the people you'd like to serve, listen to them empathetically and learn what they're struggling with, what they want to do, be, or have, and how ready they are to get help.
2. Describe your target audience in 1 sentence and share that with people in person and through all the communication channels you use. Ask 2 questions at the end of your description and put the answers into action.
3. When you are clear on your niche, offer a lead magnet to give your audience value and hope for change. In exchange, receive their contact information.
4. Follow up with those people 2 - 3 times a month to give them tips and nurture a friendly, professional relationship with them. Offer them a free call with you. In that call, learn more about their situation and invite them to enroll in your program or service if it's a fit. Use the sales conversation approach Sharon described earlier.
5. Give free group presentations, such as speaking at events online or in person and giving workshops, and incorporate steps 3 and 4 above.

For help to apply these approaches, enroll in the Liberated Nurse Business Incubator Program. You'll get lifetime access to 4 self-paced business courses designed for nurses, personal coaching, and a supportive community of like-minded peers. https://bit.ly/lnbi-cart2