Homeopathy Tips for 3/27/18 – Why Most Students Do Not Go on to Successful Practices

At our live class last weekend we were discussing the future of Homeopathy. It became clear that in order for homeopathy to grow as a profession we needed more homeopaths in practice. One of the students asked the question, “Why aren’t more students in practice after studying homeopathy?”

The initial answer was that because there is not an established profession that is recognized by insurance then most people are not being funneled into homeopathic treatment. This is true. When people are sick they go to the doctor and insurance, (which is now mandatory in America), will pay for some portion of their visit. After paying the money for insurance, (which is a sizeable amount of their income), the person can not afford to pay out of pocket for homeopathic care.

So homeopathy is not built into our system and homeopaths are not being referred to by the allopathic Doctors. It will be up to us to create our own market. Ask most people on the street if they know about homeopathy and most will not have any idea of it as a healing modality. But this is changing as homeopathic products are the fastest growing segment of the supplement market.

This could be changing with the latest FDA changes. It may be much more difficult to bring homeopathic products to market in the future. This is not good for homeopathy as a whole. See the most recent newsletter.

There is not a single homeopathic student that takes on the study of homeopathy with the intention of becoming a practitioner that does not want to help people. This is the primary motivation for becoming a homeopath. But because the market for homeopaths is not established like it is for medical Doctors,  beginning homeopaths must be entrepreneurs.

New practitioners are not just starting a practice, they are also starting a business. They have to sell themselves. If they do not have confidence when starting out, their clientele will know this. A difficult thing for many students is to be able to explain homeopathy and what they do in a very short one minute presentation. This is called the “Elevator Speech”. If you are riding in the elevator with a potential client you have one minute to make your pitch.

You must be able to explain homeopathy and how you could benefit them in a very concise way. This I believe is the single biggest downfall for most beginning homeopaths and students. They are not well versed or practiced at giving their pitch. You have one minute to make an impression and capture the interest of your potential client. Even when the client makes it through the door into the office for the appointment it is necessary to be able to explain clearly what is happening. Without having experience with seeing real clients before this, most starting homeopaths do not succeed.

The key to expanding the profession and having more successful homeopaths is experience. Seeing many clients, and learning homeopathy by doing it with real people, it the only way to get comfortable in having these conversations with your clients when starting out.

The homeopath must be able to explain homeopathy so their client can quickly understand it. They must also be able to conduct the initial consultation with confidence and know the proper questions to ask in getting the best information from the client. This can not be learned in a book. This is why I train student/homeopaths in the way I do, with live cases.

So if you are new to your business of being a homeopath or a student/homeopath now, begin writing your elevator speech. Put your thoughts together concisely and practice them repeatedly until it is refined and not just memorized, but becomes a part of you. When it comes time to share what you do, you will do it with confidence. Your potential client or new client will be able to trust what you are saying because it will be delivered with confidence. They will know that you know what you are talking about.

In order to succeed you must be able to sell yourself. Being a homeopath is more that just studying and learning the rubrics and remedies. This is a people business. People are savvy. They can see right through us if we are not solid in our presentations. We must have homeopathy so well versed in our own minds we can talk about it to anyone and they would be able to understand. When you have mastered this you will be able to have a very successful practice provided you do very good homeopathy.