I am hoping to give you something to consider today. Something real. Something messy and ugly that all business owners face at some point.
I’ve just been having a conversation with my amazing husband, Murray (who I run retreats with), and I think it’s a really valuable and important topic for any practitioner out there to think about.
So the conversation, started back when I was running my multi-modality clinic, Inspirational Health. It was a conversation that I had never had before….
What happens in practice is we first see our first 7 clients, for instance, we get really excited. It’s wonderful. We have our moments of going and doing research for them, we give our all.
Then we see our first 70 clients and you know, we get that same kind of rush. We might have had some challenges but we push through it. We have this amazing experience and we get some lovely feedback.
And then we see our first 100 clients.
It’s here you’ll start to notice there’s a percentage thing that happens and when you see a hundred, that’s what percent is, percentage per hundred.
If you just look at the statistics on how many people you’ll see with, let’s say, diabetes. A percentage will have cardiovascular diseases. A percentage will have a higher risk of cancer. A percentage will have mental health issues. And, a percentage will just have some emotional issues or challenges that might not resonate 100% with you.
Then you see first 700 clients and you start to forget some names but some things stand out. You start to get some gut feelings about people and you start to register the right people for you and the people that are a bit of a challenge.
Then you see you first 7,000 clients.
That’s how many people I helped through Inspirational Health while I was running that clinic and out of those 7,000, I only ever had ONE complaint. But that one complaint took me down.
I had 6999 people who I had helped them and their families change their lives, bring in new life to their families, overcome conditions that they didn’t think that they would be able to shift or change… and yet that one person crushed me.
It made me question everything.
I had this same conversation with my husband. He actually used to have a job for Masterfoods Australia at one point, and he was on the complaints line for a time. He said that there were people on there that make it their quest in life to complain. They are called querulant complainers. They even have a term for it, that’s how common this is!
There was a percentage that the company allowed for querulant complainers per, you know, unit produced. This is something we don’t hear about as practitioners or entrepreneurs. It’s like insider knowledge!
It’s something that really needs to be talked about because the more people that you are here to help, the more likely it is just from a statistical perspective, that you will have somebody who will possibly be a querulant complainer. Or somebody who has a mental illness that will affect you in a not so positive way. Who may stalk you, who may harass you, that kind of thing but there are so many other people that you are helping.
Now the reason this came up today, and the reason I’m talking to you guys about it is because I’ve had one of these people. This person comes in waves. It started at my clinic. It started as walk-bys and staring through the windows at my receptionist and my staff. Then it started as phone calls, incessant phone calls. Then we got the police and we got them to go around and speak to this person because we knew who they were and then I moved my business online and then he became quite querulant over on my personal page. And he has become querulant through my business Facebook page.
I would rather not give this more airtime but it is something that not a lot of people talk about and it is something that if you are going to affect thousands of people’s lives, at some point you are going to come across this same thing.
I don’t want something as challenging as this to be a hidden, shameful thing that practitioners just have to deal with. It is literally a statistical thing and you don’t have to put up with it!
It’s something that becomes a call to action for you about your boundaries.
If you ever come across anything like this, my suggestion and what I have done is, one, report it. So report it to Facebook. There are means to report it to Facebook. There are ways to report it as a harassment, because that’s actually what it is, to the police. You can instantly block and ban that user in Facebook groups and other social media. These are places that we share and that we want to share our intentions and we want to keep healthy and happy.
If you start to get trolls, if you start to get people who are aren’t keeping your intention for your space, just like a space in the real world, you can block and ban them.
You would kick them out the front door and you wouldn’t let them back in your lounge room. And that’s what I highly suggest that you do just like I have. So I wanted to bring that to your attention.
I am also wondering about what else you’d love to hear about. If you guys wanted some more information about anything or everything to do with being an adventurer, a mum, a naturopath, a practitioner of any kind let me know in the comments below or pop on over into the Natupreneur Hub on Facebook.
I want to share the ups and downs of business life. Be really real. And if you guys are considering anything that you want to talk about feel free to pop it in the comments below.
Hopefully this conversation has been helpful and if you have any of this go on in your lives as a practitioner it’s not acceptable. You’re a human being too and as a human being creating a space and creating a message, you have the right to feel safe.
Blocking and banning is totally okay. There is no reason to feel ashamed or that you have to hide any of the things that are happening in your business.
If there is anything you want to talk about pop me a personal message, pop a message down below this in the comment section and I will do my best to come in and do a live every week in the Natupreneur Hub and connect with you guys about what’s going on, what I find interesting, what might be helpful.
The dark, the light, and everything in between.
Alright, I hope this has been a good conversation to consider and I will catch you on the next run!
I hope you have an amazing year!
Tammy x
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