This is the professional hypnotherapist podcast session number
Aidan Noone
00:04 - 00:10
0016 Sheila Granger on marketing your hypnotherapy business.
Aidan Noone
00:39 - 01:51
Very warm. Welcome to you. I'm your host Aidan Noone Thank you for joining me. There comes a time in life. When enough is enough, you know, a change has to be made and, things can keep going the way they've been going. For some it's about wanting to start something by creating a business, maybe public speaking, or even being more outgoing for others that may be about quitting something that has been a burden long enough, like smoking, copying, overweight, or suffering with stress or anxiety. The good news is that help is at hand right here, right now, just visit EAPH .ie and find out how you too can start that change process now and harvest that fruit. That's yours for the picking, because this is a process that begins with you taking action each day. And every day, all our EAPH members hypnotherapists are constantly helping passionate people, probably just like you to make change in their lives.
Aidan Noone
01:51 - 02:41
And in the process, save a ton of money in today's podcast. We hear from internationally renowned clinical hypnotherapist, Sheila Granger. She always shares with us, her many, many years experience of building a very successful hypnotherapy practice with connections right throughout the world. Sheila speaks about the importance of building relationships and how that can be achieved. Using modern technology tools like video. We hear about her co-authorship with an eminent consultant urologist in a soon to be published series of books ever wondered what a bravery pill is. Find out all of this and more in today's professional hypnotherapists podcast.
Aidan Noone
02:41 - 03:47
My guest today is probably one of the most highly sought after ethical and reputable clinical hypnotherapists in the English speaking world from the UK to the USA, Canada, Australia, and further afield. She has trained over a two and a half thousand hypnotherapists in over 16 countries worldwide. She has featured extensively in the printed media and broadcast media worldwide, probably best known for her pioneering work in the virtual gastric band and indeed other pioneering work. And in more recent times among other things core throwing a book on long COVID, she is constantly continuing her research on all matters. Hypnotherapeutic with specific applications, and I'm sure as soon to be published and no doubt, we will hear more about this in today's podcast. She is dedicated to helping other hypnotherapists to develop themselves and their businesses internationally renowned clinical hypnotherapist. She agrees. You're welcome.
Sheila Granger
03:48 - 03:56
Thank you and that's it. It's a great intro. He's talking about somebody
Aidan Noone
04:03 - 04:05
Sheila, that you come from as the say, Hull,
Sheila Granger
04:07 - 04:16
I do from a place called Hull, you know, people from all from all from all that.
Aidan Noone
04:16 - 04:26
now. How has that coming from Hull How has that influenced in terms of how the person that you are today
Sheila Granger
04:28 - 04:32
How was it influenced That's a difficult question to start off with, isn't it
Sheila Granger
04:33 - 05:32
I think, you know, I came from, you know, that the city of all, it's actually a fairly deprived, city rarely. yeah, of course we've got affluent areas as well. but I do tend to think that, you know, for any of us as hypnotherapists, we have that education piece to do all of the time, you know, does it work and will it worked for me. and I suppose, you know, I've done my best over a period of time to infiltrate my local city, in all different aspects of hypnosis, you know, from, you know, businesses to hospitals, to, the general public, you know, we've worked with the homeless, on confidence. you know, I mean, you know, I look at the city where I'm from, it's a great city to be.
Aidan Noone
05:32 - 05:43
Yeah. And even she had her from the get go, when you started your practice, you seem to have, you know, really shot off from the start and haven't looked back.
Sheila Granger
05:45 - 06:44
Yeah. I mean, again, I think, you know, obviously behind all of that goes a serious amount of work to make it happen, but, and I also think that I've been, I mean, some people say that we shouldn't use the word, luck, if you like this, no such thing as luck, some people see opportunities and other people don't see them. and I think, you know, I've just been, I've just taken a bravery pill from the get go. That's really what I've done. Just take, I call it a bravery pill. And I sometimes refer to, sometimes you've just got to put your big girls pants or your big woolly pants on without being too worried about the outcome. you know, I remember the, the, my first bravery pill, if you like, I'd like many of those are done a standard, I suppose, diploma in clinical hypnotherapy.
Sheila Granger
06:46 - 07:57
I used to buy my local newspaper every day and they call it the Hull daily mail. I call it the daily mail because there's been enough with great interest in it. I got the paper I've been qualified for two weeks and on the front page of this newspaper was a plea for help. And it was a lady who would hiccup any mostly for about, I think it's about five years, something like that. and I do it to this day, really know what made me do it cause I had no background in doing this kind of thing, but I ran the paper up the rung, the journalist who had written the article and said, I am a hypnotherapists, because you know, this certificate, that said I was might be able to help this lady. I'd like to offer a complimentary session and just left it at that. And the following day, the journalist said, yeah, we'd like to bring that lady to see you. And we'd like to film it for our website, no pressure there then. And that night, you know, okay, where is there a script
Sheila Granger
08:00 - 09:06
Because nobody, I can't remember. Everybody's ever cool, but this with me on retraining. and I just really just gave it a go. I just use what I knew without being too worried. Whether, you know, of course you have the potential to not work, for the, not to be an outcome, but you know, so what if there wasn't, I've had to go and what was the worst that was going to happen You know, the newspaper weren't going to write the follow-up that said, do you know Sheila Granger, cheeky mare offered a complimentary consultation, did this work for free Then it didn't work because there will be no news that wouldn't be news, couldn't be ethically criticized for it. I didn't, what did happen was the lady stopped hiccuping her in the session. I don't know, to this day, Aiden, what I said to her stop. But anyway, she stopped doing the session and the following day, the newspaper at this full page article on me as a change experts, you know, say,
Aidan Noone
09:11 - 09:14
So how lucky was that for you as you know, that was excellent.
Sheila Granger
09:14 - 09:31
So that, you know, it was a break because people reading, things like that think, well, I got all these calls saying, well, if you can help that lady do this, I'm sure you can help me do this, this and this. You know, what the ball rolling and going out on a little bit of a limb.
Aidan Noone
09:31 - 09:55
Yeah. Not many people out there, you know, they go through a hypnotherapy training, their diploma and maybe their advanced diplomas. And they, there are continually continually going for continuum continuum to professional development, but some people succeed and others don't. What is the secret indexer, Sheila in your opinion
Sheila Granger
09:56 - 11:33
I think as well as the cause a lot of the time and I didn't, I didn't come from any business or marketing background. I, you know, my day job before falling into this profession, which a lot of us do we fall into this profession. and then we get sucked in and it's like, this is unbelievable. I look this and we want more of it. but we always think we need to know more. We need to learn more and development in hypnosis training is important to a degree. you know, I always like to test hypnosis out into new areas and see what I can learn more about, but we have to couple that with learning how to market ourselves and running as a business, because, and I think that's, where sometimes as an industry, we can fall down because if people don't know about us, which they're not going to, if we don't learn how to market ourselves, if people don't know about this, we can't really help anybody. you know, the days of, you know, being able to, you know, kind of hang your certificate on the wall and put up a one page website and people naturally book you, you know, those are days gone by, and those days aren't going to come back. and we're all bombarded with so many different messages daily on social media and on email I'm appetising, you know, how do we, as a hypnotherapist cut through that noise so that somebody actually knows about what it is that we do
Aidan Noone
11:33 - 11:34
How do we do it
Sheila Granger
11:35 - 12:41
Well, there's multiple ways, multiple ways to market yourself. Absolutely. But I always think go back to the basics, say everything's digital marketing these days, but it's, if you forget the digital marketing side of things, because that can become hugely for people who were just starting off. But a lot of the time it's about having conversations with people, you know, put ourselves out there, you know, go to a networking events, you know, start giving presentations to local groups, and just have conversations with people. That's all I did to start with. I was just having a lot of conversations and some of those conversations would come to absolutely nothing. and other times it would lead to something. you know, I mean, if you offered to, and sometimes I think we have to take the word hypnosis away from it. Not that I shy away from that's exactly what I do.
Sheila Granger
12:41 - 13:47
but if I was going to approach a school, for example, you know, can I help the students perform better in an exam situation If I was to approach them from a point of view of, you know, can I come and hypnotize the kids they'd be like, absolutely not, no, you cannot do that. Because again, so many people who have to do it, have that understanding of what hypnosis actually about. But if I said to the school, you know, can I come and teach them some mind management techniques so they can perform at the best. And so that you can move up the league tables even more with your school. Would that be okay And sometimes we've got to do things if you like for free for the game to be a limit on that. Cause we need to be mentally, but every avenue that I've gone down with it, maybe it working in schools or in businesses, you know, working with homeless charities, any situation I've gone into, I've done something complimentary to begin with kind of showcase the expertise.
Aidan Noone
13:48 - 14:05
Yeah. To what extent should I, is it all about relationships because I am intend people buy from people, you know, th they it's about building that relationship in such a way that people begin to know, like, and trust you
Sheila Granger
14:06 - 15:11
Absolutely spot on. and you know, these days as well, you know, that word trust is, is massive. and if in our hypnosis practices, we just think, okay, so what am I going to do today to build trust with people that might be on my social media It might be, you know, LinkedIn posts. It might be when you go networking, you know, or even when we have a inquiry from a client, how can I immediately look to build trust with this person, how to look, to engage them in a relationship that isn't just an email, because that's not really very personal, is it, you know, I mean these days, you know, video is a big, obviously a medium. and we know that from, you know, how many people use YouTube all the time. but even a simple thing, you know, sometimes we'll put off doing videos because, you know, I don't like doing videos if there has not done properly, etc .
Sheila Granger
15:11 - 16:12
And I've got my makeup, you know, do I look alright today And all those stumbling in the way, but I'll do we need specialist equipment. So we've all got fancy phones these days that we can shoot videos on. So if I get a client inquiry through my website and somebody wants to book sessions, the first thing I want to try and do is ring them up and have a conversation with them as quickly as possible. But if I can't get them on the phone and I've got their mobile number, I will shoot a quick video on the phone and it will just say, hi, Sheila grand, you're here. I've got your back just to let you know, I've, I've tried to give you a call. I've got your inquiry from a website, looked up a chat with you about it. I can give you an honest opinion to whether I think hypnosis is the right route for you for a solution. And I fire that video off. And the whole idea of the video is not to sell the sessions it's to build the relationship and eyes on somebody. And I'm thinking, yeah, you're a regular kind of person.
Aidan Noone
16:12 - 16:14
That's the human touch in other words.
Sheila Granger
16:14 - 16:16
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Aidan Noone
16:17 - 16:23
Yeah, no. Sheila, if there was one thing that you could change about the hypnotherapy industry, what would it be
Sheila Granger
16:26 - 17:05
I mean, I love our industry, you know, simply because you can never run out a places to go and work within that scope of practice. so, and I think the one thing, is I think we draw too many comparisons with people or, you know, we'll, we'll follow certain people in the industry. and you know, we latch onto one avenue and you, when really, if we broadened our minds and also looked at what interests, alls, and moving that forward, we would all move forward because of that, does that
Aidan Noone
17:06 - 17:28
Yeah, it does. It does. And it's also, you know, touches on the whole area of that, you know, identifying perhaps, a, a speciality that you could specialize in as a hypnotherapist. In other words, to use the marketing parlance, to identify the pain on offer a solution to that pain.
Sheila Granger
17:29 - 18:33
Yeah. And again, there are, I always thinking of, we think back to how many things in therapy can potentially help with. We can almost never run out of ideas to go into. And it's what interests you with an individual, not necessarily, a steer of, a training course of something that's been offered to you it's, you know, what interests you within individual what do you relate to, and when you, take it from that point of you and become really curious about things. So, you know, this, this year I'm involved with a consultant neurologist, we're going to be releasing five books on the, what they describe as the big cats of neurology. So motor neuron disease, muscular, muscular dystrophy Parkinson's and, you know, some people have said to me, what are you going to write in that book What are you going to write in that book
Sheila Granger
18:34 - 19:34
my immediate responses, I have absolutely no idea, because I'm still, I've sort of got, you know, more of a handle on, you know, how will this affects people, what the mindset is around it, what marginal gains could be created with hypnosis. and I can only do that when I become a lot more curious about each individual subject. but you know, as we know with any illness, there is an element of mindset attached to it as well. So we could take the word hypnosis the word for it, and just think about in terms of mindset, there will be areas that people can create marginal gains in their life. but you know, I have an interest in neurology. I have some contacts in that area as well, and we just explored the possibility and that's really where all this has come about.
Aidan Noone
19:36 - 19:46
And to what extent Sheila, you know, you mentioned about the curiosity, curious mind and curiosity, to what extent is that being a part of the, your success, success story
Sheila Granger
19:48 - 20:13
Yeah, I think probably quite a big part of me, you know, in the, I always have this kind of, well, I'll just see what happens. I'll just see what happens with the virtual gastric band. You know, again, that was a kind of odd to see what happens. and again, you know, taking bravery pills and being prepared for something not to work as well.
Aidan Noone
20:13 - 20:16
Yeah. Okay. What am I buying that was bravery pills by the way.
Sheila Granger
20:20 - 21:21
So with that, I just went out and I just said, I'd like 25 volunteers, please throw weight loss program. Nobody wants to lose weight so that, you know, I've got a stampeade of people. I belonged in networking group as well at the time. So I could ask them if you would like to stay apart in this sessions. you know, again, another bravery pillar, I contacted the media and said that I was, would they like to come and independently verifying the results hurt again It was looking at you, it works, but it may not have worked as well. Both, you know, 23 out of , 25 had positive results. and as a result, you know, there was national press on it. And I went on the television and they went to, to the gastric surgeons and, you know, all this kind of came on the back of it, but it was just a case of, well, I'll just see what happens.
Aidan Noone
21:24 - 21:28
She had a to what extent, why are you so passionate about what you do
Sheila Granger
21:31 - 22:46
I think we can all remember those cases where, you know, somebody says to you, you have completely changed my life. because you know, there this, this clients that we sometimes work with where we don't necessarily get the result that we would have hoped for, for whatever reason that may have been. and there's multiple reasons of course, why that might be the case. and those, and we always have times as well, either the client sessions haven't gone as well. You know, we might not be getting the client inquiries, you know, you know, going through a little bit of a rough period, but I always take that back every time to those cases where you did make a difference, those people who've said, you know, you've completely changed my life. those are the drivers that drive you forward all the time, you know, and I always think, well, what if I could do that And I think the more you you put under there, well, what if I could though, again, without being too attached to the outcome, then you know, we start to things start to just happen.
Aidan Noone
22:48 - 23:00
and many instances, I believe Sheila, that, you know, you don't hear about the successes that you have with clients, because some clients prefer not to give any feedback.
Sheila Granger
23:01 - 23:40
Hmm. Yeah. Sometimes it is only you that knows about that. You know, some clients are willing to perhaps do a Google review or some might be, is willing to go through a video testimate testimonial or even, you know, be a quote in a press release or something that you send out. but yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of clients as well, who only you and then know about, you've been a big part of their life. And I think, you know, it's quite an honor to have, been able to do that work with them.
Aidan Noone
23:41 - 24:06
and there have been huge success stories and indeed transformative success stories with many clients, I'm sure. And through my own experience and other speaking with other hypnotherapists results, some of the results have been phenomenal now she, and that was all your success and all your, your drive. If you could have one superpower, what would that be
Sheila Granger
24:06 - 25:06
More years to live I have to think now. I mean, I, I came into this profession, you know, I'm 55 years old now. I've been in this profession for 13 years now, 12 years full time. why didn't I do this when I was thirty Why didn't I get into this when I was thirty but the good thing is about professional thing. You know, you don't have to retire from it. you know, I'm looking lucky. I get to talk to hypnotherapist around the world and there's a, a lady in Australia and she's in her eighties and she still is clients. you know, it's, it's one of those professions where really we don't have to stop. We don't have to stop at a certain point.
Aidan Noone
25:06 - 25:22
I re I recall speaking with a lady recently, a hypnotherapist here in Ireland, and I said to her, when are you going to retire And she says, never as long as I, if I, if the can wheel in the chair and I'm able to speak, I continue doing my work.
Sheila Granger
25:23 - 25:53
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And there's been many a time that, you know, I have a very weird auto immune thing, called Maya senior gravis, . Raise its head, swept me off my feet. I get a lot quicker then perhaps some of that drive to get back to doing what I want to do.
Aidan Noone
25:60 - 26:03
No. how do you want to be remembered, Sheila,
Sheila Granger
26:04 - 26:40
How do I want to be remembered I'd like to think that I've made a difference on this planet. yeah, I think, I like to think that I gave all the people a leg up wherever possible. you know, if that was written on my grave I gave people a leg up, then I'll be quite happy with that.
Aidan Noone
26:45 - 27:05
Now, again, all of your success you've done work and coming up with the establishing the virtual gastric band, you do hypnotherapy for smoking cessation and you also, get behind other hypnotherapists. You have a hypnosis growth club. Tell us about that.
Sheila Granger
27:05 - 28:17
Yeah. And the group talks an interesting one because, I didn't suddenly decide one day to kind of settle per growth club for hypnotherapy. what happened was, when COVID first hit, I did know that a lot of, because we tend to be fairly, it's obviously bad as an industry. It marked in ourselves. a lot of maybe quite a lot of hypnotherapists who businesses would literally fall off a cliff when COVID hit and we all have to go online. So I thought, well, what I'll do What can I do to, to help with that And so she went out with a, and did a 12 week marketing program and there was 160 hypnotherapists from all around the world, joined me on that and made it really low cost. So it was affordable for people. And every week I gave them new training material, previous blogs, prewritten press releases and promotional videos that they could use to get them into this consistent habit of doing things every week.
Sheila Granger
28:17 - 29:14
And we made it highly relevant to what was happening in the world. So anxiety or, you know, how people were being impacted by curvy and this kind of run for 12 weeks and there was hypnotherapists and all four corners of the globe. Who've got themselves in the local newspaper, pro got the rascal, you know, it's gone talk on the radio stations, you know, it really impacted on their businesses. And I really only intended to do the 12 weeks and that was it. And then at the end of the 12 weeks, and so many of them said to me, oh, she really liked me to know, you know, is it, we've got a fantastic community. We all got on with each other. We want to carry on doing it. What can we do going forward So that's when it kind of morphed into this hypnosis' growth club where, you know, we have, weekly provided weekly business lessons and, for all aspects of the hypnosis practice,
Aidan Noone
29:15 - 29:29
No. in many ways, Sheila you have broken the mould. You've mentioned there about, you know, the COVID in fact, I think it's true to say that during COVID you've actually increased your business.
Sheila Granger
29:31 - 29:42
Yes. So my business increased, my business increased by 46% during COVID that's
Aidan Noone
29:42 - 29:44
Phenomenal statistic. How did you do that
Sheila Granger
29:45 - 30:40
Well, again, it was from, you know, I think if we just, we should always work from a place of, you know, I'm just gonna see if I can help people. I'm just going to see if I can help more people, by, being seen to be helpful. So putting out helpful content, things that, you know, sending, to medical press with downloads that people could use during COVID on might be, it might have been on some free sessions for some, you know, just the more we are helpful, the more people that will remembers, the more people that will eventually move away from you and wants a personal session. you know, eventually it leads to the opportunities
Aidan Noone
30:41 - 30:59
Yeah. And date, and those opportunities present themselves in many, many times during the day. So what, what advice would you give to a person who is just joining the hypnotherapy profession What advice would you give them
Sheila Granger
31:02 - 32:21
I would say, you know, the number one thing is the, we have to get ourselves out there in some way, and we all think that I've got to go out and sort of advertise hypnosis and smoking weight loss, all of those things. but we've got to go and find somebody new all the time. And often when we're starting off, we forget about people. We already know job from a previous day job. So, you know, I was talking to a lady recently whose background is in working in the corporate world and working with lots of different businesses. So I said, I'm sure this people then from your previous stage job, you still in touch with the kind of people that you could almost just ring up, almost like a cup of coffee chats, not a sales pitch, just the coffee chat. And I said, why don't you ring some of those people off and offer to, you know, could you do some, stress relief sessions for staff Could you, you know, that would benefit their organization. you know, would that be a useful thing And from those conversations opportunities will come. No,
Aidan Noone
32:21 - 32:31
Absolutely, absolutely. Excellent, excellent ideas Sheila. No, if there were, if there were any books that you could recommend, what would they be
Sheila Granger
32:33 - 34:00
Well, I started off, I have to think I started off by buying the big red Croydon Hammond because the reason that I liked that book, or I liked that book so much is, you know, we all know that we shouldn't read scripts to people. We know that, but what scripts can be really good for generating creativity in our own mind or giving us ideas. We've all got to have a starting point that is full of some really great ideas. another book that I would recommend, if you give me one second and this, this particular book, I actually had it off, my took it off my bookshelf the other day, but I'm flicking through for different, for different things. It's quite a big book and it's called the handbook of medical and psychological hypnosis guy called Gary Elkins, foundations, applications, and professional issues.
Aidan Noone
34:01 - 34:01
Excellent.
Sheila Granger
34:02 - 34:13
and that's got some really useful thing back to references, you know, I always, I'm one of these, who's like, you know, what's the evidence behind
Aidan Noone
34:13 - 34:15
That That's important. Absolutely.
Sheila Granger
34:16 - 34:23
you know, so if somebody tells me, well, this works well, or does it work And what's the evidence behind the fact that he does.
Aidan Noone
34:25 - 34:27
So how can we contact you
Sheila Granger
34:29 - 35:04
Yeah. So people can either contact me through my website, which is www .Sheilagranger.com. I'm also on Facebook and Facebook, to be honest with you better off through my personal Facebook page, which is actually Sheila Elaine Granger. I'm not more people call me over my personal business place. So of course, to get another personal to call it something else
Sheila Granger
35:07 - 36:11
That came about, you know, if people either connect with me on Facebook, you know, send me a friend request, because I do, put on as many webinars as I possibly can, to help or the hypnotherapists, they're always complimentary of the webinars. you know, over the next year, there's going to be, at least a webinar a month, on different. So, if you, if people find me on Facebook, they'll see the invitations to the webinars as well. Yeah. Plus also, you know, I, I do like to make myself as available as possible to help other people. So, you know, if, if somebody listens to this things, you know, I could really just do with a one-to-one zoom with you to brainstorm something. I'm always considering that eight, eight doesn't cost anything, you know, you're not sold. it is purely if I can give somebody else,
Aidan Noone
36:13 - 36:26
That's very generous of you Sheila. So thank you so much for speaking with me today on the professional hypnotherapist podcast, that was internationally renowned clinical hypnotherapist. Sheila Granger Thank you, Sheila.
Sheila Granger
36:27 - 36:28
Thank you so much
Aidan Noone
36:28 - 36:40
Once again. Thank you for joining me on the professional hypnotherapists podcast. I do hope you've received some benefit to next time. Please check out EAPH.ie