The #1 Decision That Will Make or Break Your Ergonomics Business (And the 5-Part System to Get Clients When You Have Zero Experience)

Stuck in the ergonomics consulting Catch-22? You need clients to build experience, but companies won't hire you without a portfolio. In this episode, we're breaking down the complete roadmap to building a thriving ergonomics business—starting with the ONE decision most consultants skip that determines everything else.

You'll discover why choosing between B2B and B2C before you do anything else will transform your marketing, your messaging, and your results. Plus, I'm sharing the exact 5-part system to break through the experience barrier, the Value Ladder strategy that turns one-time clients into long-term relationships, and the "Hey I Want to Work with More of These Types" Matrix for identifying your ideal high-profit, high-joy clients.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why B2B vs. B2C is the foundational decision that shapes your entire business

• The 5-part process to get clients even with zero experience or testimonials

• How to build a Value Ladder so you're not dependent on "unicorn clients"

• The 3 C's of marketing that will carry you further than any certification

• Why starting before you're ready is the smartest thing you can do

• The simple "so that" trick that transforms features into benefits that sell

Whether you're thinking about starting your own practice, transitioning from a 9-to-5, or wondering why your current marketing isn't working—this episode gives you the blueprint to build the ergonomics business you deserve 

Are you a healthcare professional curious about how office ergonomics assessments could fit into your services? I’ve got you covered with some valuable (and free!) resources at www.ergonomicshelp.com/free-training.

Transcript

0:00

well, hey, there. Welcome to the Business of Ergonomics podcast. Today on the show, we're diving deep into something that I think is going to be extra valuable for anyone looking to build or grow their ergonomics consulting business. Let's do this. Welcome to the Business of Ergonomics podcast. I'm your host, Darcy Jeremy. I'm a board certified professional agonist with over 15 years of experience delivering ergonomics programs to employers of all different types. In this podcast, I share what other healthcare professionals are already doing and being with ergonomics assessments and how to land those clients that you dream of. Without further ado, let's jump into this episode right now. So whether you're just starting out. Thinking about making the leap from your nine to five, or you've been at this for a while and you're wondering why you're not seeing the results that you expected, then this is gonna be perfect for you guys. One thing I wanna really say upfront is that this is not an all or nothing type of thing. You can dabble in bringing in. Customers for your ergonomic service business, even if you still have a nine to five and you wanna build up your reputation in bringing people in. Or maybe you work in a clinic and you're a PT or an OT and you wanna add office ergonomics assessments and other services related to office ergonomics to the types of services that you already have. You don't have to go full tilt into it. You can just look to add one a week or one every couple weeks, There's lots of degrees that you can have success with office ergonomics and other types of ergonomics consulting too. We are going to cover everything from the most critical decision that you need to make before you do anything else to breaking you through that frustrating Catch 22 that so many consultants face to building a marketing system that actually works.'cause you know I have been there too personally. I started with a nine to five and I had to jump to running my own ergonomics consulting business. So I had to get up to gear with marketing 1 0 1, and I'm gonna tell you some really good tips with that today. So I want you to grab your coffee, grab your notebook, and let's get into it. Okay, so before we get into marketing tactics and value ladders and all that good stuff, I need to talk about something that most ergonomics consultants completely miss and honestly. It might be the most important decision that you make in your entire business. What am I talking about? I'm talking about deciding whether you're going to be a B2B business. That's business to business, or a B2C business, and that's business straight to the consumer. Now I know what you're thinking. Darcy, I'm not going to say no to business. If someone wants to pay me, I'm taking their money and look, I get it, especially when you're starting out. You need revenue coming in, right? But here's the thing. We are not talking about turning away business. We're talking about where you wanna focus your marketing. Everything else in your business, your messaging, your content, your pricing, your value ladder, where you show up online, the language you use, all of it flows from this one decision. If you are B2B, you're targeting organizations. You're talking to HR managers, safety directors, operation managers. Your messaging is about reducing workers' compensation claims, improving productivity, compliance with OSHA standards. You are positioning yourself as a business solution that affects the bottom line. On the other hand, if your marketing to B2C. Then you are talking directly to individuals, maybe remote workers who are experiencing pain, people who wanna set up their home office properly. Maybe your messaging is more personal. It's about reducing their pain, improving their quality of life, being able to pick up their kids without wincing. More emotional almost. The platforms are different. The price points are different. The sales cycle is completely different. A B2B sale might take months of relationship building and multiple stakeholders. A B2C sale might happen the same day. Someone finds you on Instagram. So before you do anything else, before you build your website, before you create content, before you start networking, sit down and decide who is my primary target market. You gotta make a choice here. You can always pivot later, but at least you need a starting point to start from. For most of our listeners, B2B is going to be the more lucrative path. Corporate contracts mean bigger payments, reoccurring revenue, and the ability to really make an impact at scale, but it also requires a different approach to marketing than going after individual consumers. So with that foundation in place, y'all, let's talk about one of the biggest challenges you're gonna face when you start going after those clients. And this is what I like to call the catch 22 of Ergonomics Consulting. And here's the frustrating paradox that almost every ergonomics consultant faces at some point in their career. You want to drive business to your services and gain experience, so you're reaching out to clients. Okay, but here's the kicker. They won't hire you if you don't already have a Rolodex of clients or an impressive portfolio filled with success stories. Does this all sound familiar? Whether or not you know what a Rolodex is, or instead, we're have a portfolio or an Excel file of the people that we have worked with and have gotten results. It's the same thing here, and it's all boils down to the classic job search problem. You need experience to get the job, but you need the job to get experience. But here's what I want you to understand. There's a huge gap between where we are as consultants and the opportunity that's out there. Go do a quick Google search right now for ergonomics consultants in your area. Go pause this. So chances are you're gonna find maybe one or two people already doing this. I'm talking about local ergonomics companies, not national or international firms. We're talking about people who want to build a relationship and can turn up when that company needs help, whether it's accommodation for return to work. Or other fire that an ergonomics consultant who is local can truly deal with chances are. They will never be more than five, but it's probably gonna be one or two. Even if there's a few, there's still so much room to market your services more effectively. Let's compare this to other industries here. If we're talking about PT or OT or chiropractor or massage therapy clinics, these clinics are pretty much on every street corner of every neighborhood. So we know that people are in pain and we know that they're trying to feel better, but is anybody doing anything with the source or the root cause of that pain? Probably not. Probably not looking at the way the office is set up. My friend, the demand for our services is high. The supply of qualified professionals is low. Yet many ergonomics consultants fall flat when it comes to reaching their ideal clients. And here's the hard truth I need you to hear right now, It is not the most qualified person who gets clients. It's the person who markets themselves the best. They don't need to understand the difference between A CPE and A-C-E-E-S. They just want their problem solved. So let's get back to that Catch 22. How do we break through this? let me give you a five part process that I have used and that I have recommended, and I've seen work for consultants all over the world. Let's do this. So part one, you wanna define your ideal client avatar. This is the foundation. Not everyone is your ideal customer, and if you decided you're gonna go with B2B and targeting corporate clients, you're probably reaching out to human resources. So if you're with me with part one and you're ready to see success in your business, I'm gonna ask you to do something that steps a bit outside your comfort zone. And I guarantee that probably just a handful of people who are listening to this podcast are actually going to take me up on this. But if you want results, this is the type of thing that you need to hear. You can't just wait and do the same thing that you've ever done and expect to get results. What I want you to do is I want you to get five to 10 ideal client avatars on the phone. How do you do that? Well, you can make them an offer they can't refuse, and you can think about this, what this would mean for your specific service, whether it's reduction in services or no charge presentation for their office or anything like that. An office ergonomics consultant that's a little bit cheaper. There's a lot of potential here, but I want you to get five to 10 ideal client avatars on the phone. Ask them questions about their professional limiting beliefs, their fears, their needs, their wants, their desires, So you gotta ask them these questions in roundabout ways. You don't wanna straight up ask someone what their limiting beliefs are because they're gonna think you're a complete psycho. What I want to encourage you to do is instead ask them what keeps them up at night. What would make their job easier. If you can get those answers, you're gonna have a really clear idea of how to position your services to attract their attention, There is a lot of information here, but if you, extrapolate some thoughtful questions on how to get a roundabout answer. To these limiting beliefs, their fears, their needs, their wants and desires. So after you get those phrases that they say, you are off to the races to be writing that content. Throughout your marketing strategy, whether you wanna have that on your homepage or on the content that you produce on LinkedIn or whatever way you connect with your folks, then this is your ammunition. This is your content. Let's move on to part two. Part two is to produce content consistently. Marketing is a lifestyle. We need to consistently show up and provide value. Ask yourself, what type of content do I absolutely love creating? Where do I shine? What connects best with my audience? Where do they like to hang out? So at the end of the day, whatever you produce, you have to do it consistently Your content should create desire for your services, and it should also demonstrate your expertise. Build no, like and trust too. Part three is that you wanna engage with your ideal client. Creating valuable content isn't enough if no one sees it, and that's a problem that so many ergonomics experts have when they're first starting out. No one knows that they exist, right? So I want you to find out where your ideal client likes to hang out. Is it LinkedIn? Is it Instagram? Is it Facebook? Is it industry forums? I want to encourage you to do your due diligence and track your engagement. What types of posts get the most traction? Where do you generate the most leads? And how do you bring them into your business? And I want you to keep that in mind. Did you know that it takes at least 12 touches for people to take some sort of action with you? Whether it's to subscribe to an email list, to put a comment on one of your posts, it takes time. So not only do you need to be producing content consistently, but engaging with your ideal client is so important too. I want you to focus on one marketing channel. This is where so many consultants go wrong. They spread themselves out way too thin across every single platform. Then they wonder why they're not getting results. I want you to pick one channel. That's it. One channel, go all in on the platform if that's where your ideal clients are. I want you to post content, engage with your audience, follow up with people, build relationships without trying to sell right away, because nobody wants a used car salesperson. We want deep relationships that actually provide value and help us. They wanna know that you are not just someone looking for the sale. They wanna know that you are someone that's gonna help when things get a little sticky and hairy at work. Part five. The next thing I want you to do is collect emails. This is another mistake I see constantly. You don't need a fancy website for this or anything like that. You can use MailChip, ConvertKit, you name it. There's a lot of free resources out there that's like free for under a thousand emails that doesn't cost the kitchen sink and allow you to start collecting emails from your ideal clients. It's very simple. Here, I want you to create a landing page. with a freebie or a newsletter, sign up as the lead magnet I want you to get people on your EMO list so you can nurture that relationship over time. Because here's the magic, once they're on your list, you can share information about your business, highlight your expertise, and most importantly, you can make them offers. I like to sum this up like this. I like to say the three C's'cause that's pretty catchy. It's content, consistency and connection. If you have valuable content your ideal clients wanna see your consistent in showing up and you're nurturing those connections, then you can break through that catch 22. The next thing I wanna talk about is getting your first paying client. And I wanna get practical about landing those first clients. And I want you to share something that I like to call the, Hey, I wanna work with more of these types, matrix. I wanna share something that I think is pivotal for your next steps here, and it's about looking at the types of companies that you wanna work with and figuring out where they would fall if you were to rate them. And I want you to ask these questions about your ideal client. What do they stand for? Do they invest in their employees? Do they have a return to work program? Do they have health spending accounts for their staff? Do they already do ergonomics assessments? Do they have employee engagement programs? You wanna think about these clients on two accesses, profitability and joy of work. Your goal is to fill your calendar with high profit. High joy clients. These are organizations that are respectful, organize, and recognize the importance of what you do. On the other hand. you've got low profit, low joy clients. These clients drain your energy. They're poorly organized. They're just checking a box for employee health and safety, so they don't value your work. Now look, when you're first starting out, you might have to take some clients that aren't your ideal. I get it. Bills need to be paid, but as you progress intentionally, add more and more clients that you love working with clients who pay you and what your services are worth. Alright, I wanna talk about one of my favorite concepts here. It's called the value ladder. This is how I started and this is how I grew my client list. A value ladder is a way of mapping out. Your product or service offerings in a way that ascends in price from your lowest value offer, which you use as a hook to increase awareness and demonstrate your value all the way up to your highest price service. Picture a triangle. At your base, you have freebies and low cost items. This is the widest part that most people will engage here. in the middle you have moderately priced services, and at the tippy top you have your premium high ticket offers. Let me tell you why this matters so much. Have you ever landed what I like to call a unicorn client? It's a huge contract where you can make your entire year's revenue in one quarter just doing office ergonomics assessments. They're amazing. They have a real need and it's a huge budget. They have the budget, it's a win-win. But here's the thing too. Unicorn clients are super rare. They don't come around all the time. And if your entire business model depends on landing unicorns, you're gonna have a lot of feast or famine cycles. The value ladder lets you build relationships with clients who don't fit that unicorn description. Meaning I'd rather get a client into my business with a lower price service in order to build a long-term relationship. That's much better for your bottom line than waiting around for unicorns that might never, ever come or might not never be ready for ergonomics. Right. So let me walk you through how this. Structure works and trust me, it does work. I built my business on this. Level one is the lead magnet. It's the base of your triangle, and this has to be not only aligned where your services are, and it ascends up to your highest priced services. But it also lines with what you love to do. If you are a type of person who absolutely shines doing presentations, then I want you to think about doing training, a free training or low cost training. You can also do downloadable content, infographics, checklists. These bring people into your world. The goal is to use this as a freebie for discovery. It's like a low risk method to start a conversation. It opens a relationship and you get to see what type of services they might actually need. One strategy I love for B2B is offering a free 20 to 30 minute long. Lunch and learn presentation. You're not trying to sell equipment or make promises or anything crazy like that. All you're doing is providing value and demonstrating that you're competent experience and likable. You're giving actual tips to help employees to know, like, and trust you. And the big thing here is you are giving away these actionable tips. So it's about setting them up for neutral posture. And this should help about 50% of employees, right? There's always gonna be people with preexisting injuries, more complex setups and questions. Maybe they just don't get how to set it up. So really you're planting seeds here to get more work down the line. You just gotta really let people know that you exist and they can trust you and they like you. let's move on to level two, the mid-range offers. This is the middle of your triangle, moderately priced services. Are things that can include assistance with return to work accommodations, discomfort surveys to identify hotspots, Hybrid offerings that combine consultations, assessments, and trainings, which I love. And a lot of companies that I've worked with Love too, because it usually brings down the budget and expands The scope of how many people can get served by you. I really wanna encourage you to spend time developing this tier, because it's probably gonna serve the majority of your audience. Level three is the premium offers. This is the tippy top of your triangle, AKA. The most expensive services for ergonomics consultants. This is usually tied to access to you. This might involve being an onsite ergonomists for a larger corporation, developing a comprehensive return to work procedure, or even a ergonomics process and procedure. It can be really lucrative and it can impact really not only your bottom line. But you can have a huge change in that organization too. The beauty of this ladder is that it gives your clients clarity on what they can do with you, and it opens up their eyes and all the ways that you can help them too. No longer are they thinking that ergonomics is only one-on-one office. Ergonomics assessments. There's so many things beyond that that we can provide value with and help the workplace that they just don't know about. But they gotta know that you exist before any of this happens. I'm gonna get real with you. I'm gonna get tactical. I am gonna give you five things you can start doing right now to market your business. Hey, I mentioned that you needed some coffee and some paper. This is where it gets real. the first tip is to start before you're ready. If you are still working nine to five and thinking about making that jump, start planting seeds now, When was the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago when the second best time to plant a tree. Now today, it can take anywhere from three to six months of consistent marketing before you start seeing real results. And I don't want you to wait until you quit your job or you're desperate to start building these relationships. There are simple things that you can do immediately, whether it's starting to attend local networking events, building your LinkedIn network, getting your ideal clients on the phone and asking them those questions. And the thing is, you're not selling anyone at this point. You're simply just developing relationships and that point alone can take a lot of the stress away from networking. You're just building relationships. You're not trying to sell them anything. My second tip is to combine patients with a system. The most effective consultants I know have two things. They have patience and a system. Patience means understanding that long-term efforts don't produce results overnight. A system means having a marketing machine that works for you 24 7, not just when you're actively out there hustling. If you don't have a system generating leads for you around the clock, you're not realizing your full potential as a business owner. The third tip is that I want you to consider part-time opportunities. Take the pressure off finding your first client by looking for part-time opportunities. This reduces the financial risk while you're building your consulting business. The last thing you wanna do is to be stressed about paying bills while trying to grow your business. The fourth tip is to focus on benefits, not features. Here's a common mistake. We stick to the features of our services and expect clients to understand the value. But most of what we do is complete jargon to the end user. there's a simple trick to translate features into benefits. All you have to do is add the phrase so that after every feature. This assessment is 30 minutes long, becomes this assessment is 30 minutes long, so that your employees can get back to work quickly with immediate, actionable recommendations. Remember, facts tell, but stories sell. You need to literally tell your audience why your services are valuable. The fifth tip is to be systematic and track everything. Marketing is a lifestyle. Build it into your daily routine every day. Spend some time focused entirely on marketing, whether that's 15 minutes engaging on LinkedIn or responding to comments on Facebook. But also track your results. I like to look at quarterly impact. It gives you enough time to really dive into a strategy and see what's working. Track by income and by impact. This will give you clarity on whether your strategies are helping you reach your goals or whether you need to adjust. Promotions are a marketing staple because they have urgency and scarcity baked right into it. When done right, promotions can move potential customers from awareness to action. Urgency pushes people to act quickly. Scarcity triggers anxiety about losing an exceptional offer if they don't act. If you keep your offers open all the time with no calls to action and no sense of urgency, people will put off taking action, which usually means they won't take action at all. Sprinkle promotions throughout your year, tie them to your value ladder. Make sure you're clear on what the services are, what benefits are in store, and who your ideal client is. Then craft your offer with urgency and scarcity that speak directly to their needs. First, make the decision that most consultants miss are you B2B. Or B2C. Everything else flows from there. Second, understand that catch 22 is real, but it's not impossible. Define your ideal client. Produce content consistently. Engage where they hang out. Focus on one channel and build your email list. Third, build a value ladder so you're not dependent on unicorn clients. Create. entry points that let you demonstrate your value and build long-term relationships. the fourth thing is to start marketing before you think you're ready. We're never gonna be a hundred percent ready, right? Especially if you're looking for procrastination, that 100% is gonna be as elusive as a reun, if you know what I'm saying. I want you to combine patients with a system, translate your features into benefits, and I want you to track everything and remember these three things, content, consistency, and connection. Those three Cs will carry you further than any certification in marketing ever will. If you wanna go deeper with any of this, I want you to check out the ergonomics blueprint for building your foundational skills in ergonomics If you already know how to do an office ergonomics assessment, or if you're coming to ergonomics from another area of expertise, and you want to grow your ergonomics business because you already know to how to do an ergonomics assessment, I want you to look at the Accelerate program. if you're ready to really scale your business with modern marketing strategies, the links and how you get started with each of these are in the show notes. thanks so much for spending your time with me today. I hope this was a really valuable episode for you and you enjoyed it as much as I had fun putting it together, and I really wanna encourage you to get out there and start building the ergonomics business you deserve. I'll see you in the next episode. You can get started with office ergonomics assessments. Today, healthcare professionals are seeing the potential and opportunity to add office ergonomics assessments to their practice and services. Go to ergonomics help.com. Slash begin to get the exact seven step process that works so that you can get started today without the confusion or overwhelm. Just head to ergonomics help.com/begin now.