Today we are gonna dive deep into what is happening on the planet right now. What to do about COVID-19, all of the other things we’re hearing about, and the doom and the gloom that is everywhere. I’m also going to share some thoughts about mindset and business and how we can move forward during this coronavirus Pandemic or other disasters.
This is an important conversation that I want to open up because all of these festering fears are not helping anybody. So let’s talk about what we can do during this unprecedented situation.
Communication
My first topic for today is that it’s incredibly, hugely important to communicate right now. Communicate.
I want you to consider, especially now that it’s officially called a pandemic, that it is really important for you to collect information. You are at the forefront of collecting information.
You have a whole qualification based on acquiring information, particularly around health and wellbeing. So you will be acquiring information right now. You also know how to be discerning around information and how to get the facts rather than the stories that go with them. Often, we’ll create a big story and emotion around a fact that becomes bigger than Ben Hur, starts to become fuzzy around the edges, and isn’t clear for anyone to take action on.
Focus On Facts, Not Stories
For instance, if someone says: “The majority of people by 2021 will have had some type of virus.” That’s a general statement that can be taken the wrong way. When in actual fact, there are facts that we’re talking about regarding a specific virus. There are timeframes. But generalised, weird stories that come around a fact means that a whole different version of fear is created that doesn’t need to be there.
The same thing happens with the economy. Back in 2008 and 2009 when we had our last recession, that was when I started my business and I doubled every year after that. It wasn’t about the economy and all of the stories that go with that because I was in it for the long game. Yesterday, I spent time at NICM (the National Institute for Complementary Medicine at the Western Sydney University) for International Women’s Day. It was gold! It was amazing. It was so cool.
Playing The Long Game
What every single one of those women was talking about (go check my Instagram stories if you haven’t already), was that when you’re in it for the long game, then these are little blips that happen along the way. When you’re in it for the long game, in the business of being a practitioner or a practitioner in business, then there is always going to be some type of roller coaster.
Think about it. In November and December, we had conversations about climate change creating bushfires and how that affected our community. Then we had floods and talked about how that affected our community. And now we have this.
Yes, it’s happening in a very short period of time for 2020. But there is always going to be something. Through the whole series of talks yesterday, what they are saying was that there is another way of looking at things when times get tough.
That’s what I want to focus on today.
Communication Is Key
And it all starts with communication. Not just the communication that you’re absorbing, but the communication that you are putting out to your clients.
I’ve recently seen really great communication from some really big companies. We can learn a lot from these bigger companies because they’ve got marketing, funding, and connections for:
- how these things occur
- experts
- getting the facts
So some of these big companies include Qantas and Virgin, in particular. I shared Virgin’s stance on being able to, not necessarily get a refund for your flights, but being able to transfer your flights due to the repercussions of COVID-19.
This is the thing that everyone’s a little bit fearful about. The actual health ramifications of COVID-19 are going to be whatever they are. It’s a virus and as we all know as health practitioners, a virus will run a certain course and have certain symptomology to it.
Again – Stick To The Facts
It’s important that we stay ahead of the facts on what’s coming out about it and remember that it’s an emerging virus. We haven’t had enough people that have been infected with this virus to truly know what the scope of it will be. So we can’t even underrate it or overrate it. We have to just stick with the facts of it.
An emerging virus that we haven’t experienced before is a very different scenario from the repercussions of:
- how many millions of people have been affected by other viruses in the past
- the situations we’ve had in the past
- with the hospitals we’ve had in the past
- the medicines we’ve had in the past
You can’t possibly say it’s one or the other. So sticking with the facts of the story is where we’re going to be able to provide the best communication.
Watch Big Corporations For Ideas
Some big organisations have created some really good community around this, this week, and I really think we, as practitioners, can learn from it.
Now, ideas we can take from big organisations like Virgin are around things like handling cancellation policies. We need to talk about how we can keep in context those cancellation policies and transfer these things to a later date, rather than sticking to our cancellation policies as we might have, previously. I really liked Virgin’s take on this.
Another really good one that I got was this morning from Asana. I’m going to talk about Asana a little bit more shortly and how we can actually create a work-from-wherever scenario in our business rather than being necessarily in-clinic. Some of the business possibilities moving forward might be:
- remote work
- creating education platforms
- diversifying
- or other ideas
Communications To Clients
Here’s what Asana wrote:
“Our commitment is still to quality and reliable service for all of our products. Our customer success, support education and community teams are standing by to help you with your needs. Online resources are available to teams around the world, including our forum.”
Consider this and how you could send out an email to all of your clients or pop something up on Facebook about your commitment and your responsibility in a situation like this around their health and your commitment to providing the needs that they require. Whether that’s through an online component, online consultations, or being able to get remedies to them in a certain way.
As Asana did, you can direct your clients to where they can get access to you and more information. That might be:
- a Facebook group
- webinars
- virtual events
- your blog
- educational material that’s online
- your YouTube channel
Let’s go back to Asana’s statement for more ideas. Their statement continued on to say:
“We’re also up for sharing the latest tips from and getting the latest tips our team on how to stay productive while working remotely.”
Think about the words there. You could say something very similar, such as:
“How to stay healthy whilst working remotely. How to stay healthy while on a home holiday (a fun way to reframe self-isolation).”
Reframing Isolation
We’ve got a great opportunity to reframe for so many of the people we help. They’re getting fed a certain communication and we can actually help give them the facts, but we also have an opportunity to reframe it so that it isn’t as scary or as horrible as the media seems to be putting out at the moment.
So if you haven’t sent out any communication about COVID-19 because you don’t want to add to the fear-mongering or whatever, you’re missing a massive opportunity to be there as a trusted adviser and be part of the conversation that everybody is having right now. There isn’t a day that’s gone by for me in the past week where a conversation hasn’t gone to this. And you need to be part of that conversation because you are a health provider.
Here’s some suggested wording you can start with and tweak and flesh out for your own business:
“We have a responsibility and are committed to quality and professionalism, to empower and educate our clients, ensure access to quality natural health care, and the most up to date information that we can get for you.”
This kind of thing is really important to inform clients that you’re looking after them and you’re looking out for them, as well.
You’re already filtering through information for yourself and your family. I’ve seen it in other Facebook groups. People posting, “What can we do? What’s the latest? Who’s the guy that sent out that info page that everybody’s downloaded for herbal remedies? What about frontline defence for nutritional remedies?”
You can do the same thing for your clients and they’re begging for it. But keep in mind that you’re utilising words like:
- immune
- immunity
- viruses
- and other accurate words
But you can also still use the terms that people are using because that’s what they’re googling for and that’s what they need to hear from you.
You need to communicate from a health perspective with all of your clients. I highly suggest that you step up and share what you know and be the trusted advisor that they need.
Your Mindset and Business
Now, I’m going to speak to the business and mindset perspective for a little bit because that’s where I’m sitting in at the moment.
Let’s talk about the economics of what’s happening. Again, I’d like to point out that in the last recession, or GFC hit of 2008 and 2009, was actually when some of the biggest growth we’ve had in women in business, particularly online started to move forward (2008 – 2010). And it grew from there. So some of the biggest growth can happen.
Economically, Things Are Happening
And supply chain-wise, things are happening throughout our industry and profession.
You’ll see that certain suppliers are sending out emails and communications about the supply chains. Because the vast majority of our pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals come from China. They’re either packed in China or the herbs move through China and those large companies are having supply chain issues.
So make sure that you’re aware of these things and noticing the facts:
- things coming out of China are gonna be a problem
- economically, we’re not ideal
- conferences and large events are being cancelled
- some schools around the world are closing
- workplaces are starting to try to diversify and disrupt the way that they work so that they can continue to provide the services and the goods that they have promised
How can we overcome those things without making a big story about what all that means?
Economically, there are always going to be people looking for information around health and wellbeing. We are perfectly placed to provide that information and provide it in a diverse and disruptive way. So, we have the opportunity to do online consults.
Working From Home (or Wherever)
If you haven’t signed up for Zoom or some other form of online consultation service such as Skype (I highly prefer Zoom because it has a level of security for the sharing of health information that isn’t available in others just yet), you should. So, if you haven’t done that, go and do it now.
Diversifying the way that you do business and the way that you work is going to be really really important in the next couple of months. And, in all honesty, the next couple of years.
I’ve been banging on trying to set people up to:
- work from their phone
- access all of their client’s details
- work from wherever
- send out an invoice at any point in time
- order someone’s product anytime
Being able to get online and give them a consultation wherever you happen to be. An acute consultation online is such peace of mind for so many people who already know, like, and trust you already, but they can’t get in to see you.
So if you haven’t done it already, go and set up some form of online consultation experience.
Supply Chains
If you are only with one of the suppliers or one of the warehouses of supplies, go and open up an account with the others. Because if supply chains change, some suppliers will have a certain product and other suppliers will not.
Make sure you are in contact with your suppliers and the industry and you’re on their email newsletter list, because that’s how they’re going to be in contact with you. If you have any questions for those particular companies or for the education services, go and speak to them specifically. Don’t just randomly ask the questions elsewhere. Go and speak to them. They’re there and they want to communicate and show up for the conversation the same way as we do.
Go Local
Making sure that you have other supply chains available is really important. But what could be even better and something I have been really embracing over the past couple of weeks is, how can we do it locally? How can we get some of these supplies locally?
How can you create your products on a more local level. Things like:
- teas
- lip balm
- sniffer boxes for teas and menthol
Can you create that on a more local level? How can you supply that on a local level, as well?
When it comes to a supply chain, at the moment, we’re noticing where the supply chains are moving around on a global level. How can we bring it back into the local area and honour some of the local companies, businesses, providers, and markets? Can you go to these places, especially now?
Because the next couple of months is going to be interesting. Figure out how to do it now so that you can create these collaborations and other local supply chains to be able to provide this for your clients.
Create A Backup Plan
It doesn’t even really matter how many cases of COVID-19 are around or the risk of infection of coronaviruses. The flow-on effect of what is happening is that there isn’t confidence in places and spaces. Some governments are making decisions about these things and we don’t actually have control over that.
What we do have control over is offering a service, regardless of any risk that you or your client has or has been exposed to a virus. Having a service there provides a stable income for your practice and a stable and safe way for your clients to have a trusted advisor in on their health and wellbeing.
I’ve heard that most of China is back at work now and production is dialled up. That may have some flow-on effects in the coming months. But having a backup plan, having a plan B, I think is a really big deal around everything. So another big takeaway is to have a Plan B based around the facts, is really important. Whether it’s this coronavirus, a fire, a flood, or something else, knowing where you can get your supplies closer to home help provide continuation.
One of the reasons that I created the Work From Wherever program is to make sure that people understand you can literally work from wherever. Making sure that you have a backup plan for working from wherever.
If you’re a multi-modality practice and you’re reading this, there are so many doctors and practices over in Canada and the US right now that are actually trying a work from home day. They’re actually having a practice day for if this were actually to occur, how would they go about it.
Contingency Plans
This is my third point – contingency plans. We just covered contingency plans for your supply chains. I’ve previously talked about contingency plans for conferences, workshops, or events. You’ll see that conferences worldwide have been cancelled or postponed because the heightened risk of viral infection is obviously going to be en masse with the number of people that are within one and a half metres of one another.
So the question is, how can you put all of that online? My suggestion is – absolutely it can be done!
Teleseminars are amazing. Plus they have the added benefit of being recordable. The recordings can then be sent out to the people who attended and others. Whereas for live events, it costs a fortune to get these things recorded! Online, you can record it, it can go out, and it can be over a certain amount of time.
One of the biggest events scheduled in Texas last month got cancelled. It was a two-day event but then it got turned into a two-week tele-summit. All of the attendees got the recordings for that, as well. 750 people had planned to go to that event and they cancelled the actual live event. But then they had all of these new opportunities to create something really cool online and create a whole ongoing thing around it.
Planning Ahead
Not only are these things able to be done from a consultative perspective, consider how:
- would it work if you are in a multi-modality practice?
- you could have a practice day working from home?
- would it work for your staff?
- it would work with a receptionist?
- cash can be managed?
- you can get systems in place for a Virtual Receptionist or virtual assistant?
You can read a lot of these articles on Forbes and Business Insider. They’re all distilling that they are having practice work from home days, or split days where certain people go into the office and others are off and seeing how that works for them, their families, and if they’ve got the right systems in place. Many of these have discovered that systems break down when it comes to reporting or communicating.
I use tools like Asana for team meetings and managing ongoing projects. I also use Slack to communicate with my virtual team members. One of my team members is up in Townsville, the other is over in Perth. So think about how to create systems to make sure that you are able to talk to each other and keep your business going.
Also, consider hardware that you might need. One of the things that these bigger organisations in the US found is that they didn’t have the microphones that they needed. Some of them were missing the basic hardware updates.
So having a practice session for what that could all look like for you and your business is highly suggested.
Diversify Revenue Streams
If you’ve ever done my trainings before – and definitely if you’ve done the Natupreneur Journey or the Work From Wherever program – you know that we talked about the ideal business model and not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Online Consults
So one-on-one consultations become a part of your ecosystem of where income comes into your business. As you start growing and you’ve done your one on one consultations, you gain some confidence. You’re going to be prescribing remedies and be able to get profit from those remedies. That’s two income streams.
But if you’re sick and you have to be at home and you don’t have those remedies on you, then you have to find other ways to do that. Finding things like Vitally and similar, or patient ordering systems for our suppliers is critical. Those are all ways to get remedies while you’re not there, which is great.
Online consultations is another way. Offering online consultations and follow-ups is another way of having programmes where you create online consultations mixed with education, along the way. Then you’ll get recurrent income from that.
eCourses
You could also be creating eCourses. This is prime time for creating a 14-day Course. Listen to me people. A 14-day eCourse. How many days are people being isolated? Isolation is a horrible thing. But if we can create a reframe around a “home holiday” or a “home study holiday.” Here are some ideas:
- 14 days to learn everything about your body you wish you’d have heard in high school
- 14 days to bounce back from the immune hit that you didn’t know you’d have
- 14 days to understand everything there is to know about your thyroid condition
Now is the time to create that! Because that’s an easy, easy thing for somebody to do if they have to go into self-isolation. You have 14 little chunks to be able to teach them what you spent between three to five or more years accumulating that knowledge. You can chunk it down for them in a really easy, beautiful way and they can get really good information every day instead of reading clickbait online about isolation and how it might be affecting them.
Affiliate Sales
Consider alternative methods of getting income while sharing your message of health and wellbeing. It could be your own eCourses or it could also be an affiliate course. If you don’t have an eCourse or don’t know how to create one (hint: I’ve got an eCourse on that), you can quite easily grab somebody else’s course and be an affiliate for that, especially if you don’t have the time effort or energy to create one.
Grab somebody else’s a course and promote it. Make sure that you’ve checked it out and that you agree with what the course is saying. Then share it with all of your clients who might particularly need it. You do a small promotion for that and then everybody gets to win. You get a commission for sharing that. It’s something that you believe in, it’s something that’s true. And your clients get the information that they need in a really positive and professional way.
Consider diversifying places and spaces that you haven’t thought of to create money coming into your practice. Create an opportunity for your clients to learn and continue to get excellent natural healthcare from you and the people that you know, in ways that might not have been your usual.
Mindset
Be Solution-Focused
These are the times when it’s very easy to see all All Of The Problems. There are problems everywhere and they’re all really loud. But we are solution-focused. As practitioners, we’re always looking for the solution, aren’t we? For our bodies, our friends’ bodies, our client’s bodies. We’re always looking for the newest and most different, weird and wacky things that are coming out for health and wellbeing. We can be solution-focused when it comes to our business and mindset as well. So notice where your mind is wandering off in problemville and start to see the solutions, instead.
Focus On What You Can Control
Consider the things that are IN your control and what you CAN do something about. Versus the things that are literally out of your control that you cannot do anything about.
The amount of time, energy, effort, and money that you spend on things OUT of your control, take away from the things that you CAN control. That is going to impact your business, your mindset, and the health of yourself and those around you. So focus on what you can control.
If you can control:
- your handwashing
- a sign up in your practice
- creating a webinar that’s going to be helpful
Control the things that you can do something about. Focus on those and ignore the things that you can’t – in your own space or your own capacity – do anything about. So, focus on what you can do focus, not on what you can’t do. Because it can be completely overwhelming thinking about all the things that you can’t do or all the possibilities that could happen.
Do The One Thing That Matters
Just do the one thing that matters at this moment for you, your family, and your clients.
- Staying in your own lane right now is hugely important
- Focus on what you can do something about
- If you can do things locally, do that
- Figure out if things can be done online, set it up and practice it before you need it
You may never need these things in the long run. But knowing you have the choice is amazingly empowering. And this is the thing, you can be completely empowered by what you’re doing in your business and your practice right now, rather than being disempowered. Be empowered about how you’re:
- diversifying
- doing things locally
- connecting and communicating with your clients
- disrupting the way that things could be done in the future
Empower Yourself & Your Clients
By doing this, you’re empowering your clients to be empowered by their own health and wellbeing and the choices they’re making, as well. So consider how you can empower yourself by the things that you can do. And then how can you empower your clients with the knowledge they need, the facts over the stories, and how can you be the one that look to for health and wellbeing advice.
What can you do right at this moment?
- Write that blog post that have in the back of your mind
- Post those social media posts you’ve been thinking about
- Make that sign for your clinic practice
- Send that email and actually voice something about what’s currently happening in the world
Because you’re a trusted adviser to these people already and they want to hear from you around the facts, rather than the stories.
Speak Up
Lastly, be honest. If you’re worried about this stuff, sharing that you’re worried, vocalising what’s going on for you, and then coming back to the facts of what you can do about it, is going to be so much more helpful to other people who need to voice their worries, as well. Rather than their adrenals going out of whack and then their immune systems going out of hand. Let them voice it and then come back to some easy, simple facts about their immune system, public health, community health, and health and safety.
When it comes to sharing of risk factors and other things to do with the community, be there and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Don’t hide, be part of the solution, not the problem. Be in communication.
It can be a crazy time but it’s really, really, really important to notice where your mindset is headed.
Be forward-thinking about what you can do :
- from an information perspective
- with a communication perspective
- through a stories versus facts scenario
- with a problems versus solutions scenario
If you are trying to find further information, you may want to go to the World Health Organization or your state government website. Or, you can visit one of the most inspiring leadership orientated practitioners that I’ve seen, Aviva Romm. She created this page about COVID-19 talking about what can do about it, and the questions that all of her clients are asking already and being part of that solution.
Take Action
Hopefully, this has been helpful. If it has, please share it with someone else who needs to hear it. A lot of people are fearful right now and sharing helpful information is one way to mitigate that.
Consider the ways that you are doing business, the ways that you are communicating, and your own mindset to get you through this really interesting time that we are living through in the world right now. Look at some of the ideas above to help you move forward, even in challenging times. What can you work on, right now?
Join us in the Natupreneur Hub to share your takeaways, join the conversation, or get support if you need it. We are there to help each other.
Stay safe, people!
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