The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ - Start Your Online Business; Dental Hygienist; Make Money From Home

46 I How To Start a Myofunctional Therapy Business (Step-by-Step)

• Carmen Ball - Ditch Hygiene Academy™ Creator; Bored Dental Hygienist Career Pivot Coach

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Hey Friend!

Have you ever finished your myofunctional therapy training and then immediately felt stuck? Like you were excited, motivated, and ready to help people... but also had no idea how to actually turn your new skills into a business that creates real income and real impact?

You are not alone. And you cannot change lives if you don’t know where to start. So today, I'm breaking down the exact five steps to start your myofunctional therapy business with clarity, confidence, and momentum. 

If you are ready to go from 'trained but not practicing' to 'I have paying clients,' this episode is your roadmap.

Hugs, high fives 🤗...and as always...

Cheering you on!
Carmen

Join The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1295968461846242

Speaker:

This topic was needed because I get so many emails all the time from people who have taken another training but they don't know what to do with it. My friend, you can't change lives and you can't be out there making a difference and making an impact for people if you don't know how to implement the myofunctional therapy education that you have been given. So in this episode, I'm gonna be walking you step by step on how to start a myofunctional therapy business. Are you here for it? Grab your copy, grab your courage, grab your notebook, sit down, buckle up, let's get into it. If you've finished your myofunctional therapy training and feel stuck on how to start, grow, or simplify your business, welcome my friend. I'm Carmen, a dental hygienist who wants that right where you are. Trained, motivated, but totally unsure how to turn that training into a real profitable business. If you're ready to attract consistent clients, create predictable income, and simplify your business, grab your coffee and your courage, my friend. Let's make your mild business make sense and a whole lot of dollars. Well, hey there, friend! Super happy you're here. Um, for this episode, I am going to be giving you a step-by-step roadmap for those of you who are just starting or are who are trying to grow your myofunctional therapy business. Um, I knew that this topic was needed really for a couple of reasons. First, my own lack of direction when I took my training, which was a 12-week training, and all of a sudden we got to the end of it, and I was like, oh gosh, what do I do here? So that was really one of the reasons that I knew that this episode was needed, but also uh because of the emails that I get from you guys, um, I teach a lot of students who have taken their training elsewhere and do not know what to do with it. So here's here's the thing, my friend. You can't change lives if you don't know what to do to get started, okay? You can't change lives. All those people out there who need you, you can't make a difference for them if you aren't confident, if you don't even know where to start. So here's where I was. I desperately wanted out of hygiene, and sadly, I took a course that was offered by somebody who did not teach a lot of the tactical stuff. So the clinical stuff, yeah, um, but the the tactical do this, do this, these are the symptoms you need. Here's where you get clients, here's how you um set up your business, all of that stuff. Um it wasn't taught, and so I had to figure it out myself. And of course, that was years ago, and I have spent all the years since then teaching all of you guys how to do this. So in this episode, I want to give you five tactical steps that you can follow to start or grow your business. Okay, so let's just dive into it. The first one, foundation. So you have to feel absolutely fantastic and confident about your foundation. Okay. So that's gonna be the what is smilefunctional therapy, who needs it. Uh, you need to feel confident in all the big players, like tongue tie, the big player topics, okay? Tongue tie, um, sleep, sleep disordered breathing, airway, airway ortho, all of that kind of stuff, okay? Some of these things are gonna come with time, like working with children or advanced client needs, that kind of stuff. Now, I didn't work with kids for a long time. Uh, and I think that was just because that's kind of how I was taught. Like kids were this big scary thing, and you had to work with adults and get your feet wet, um, which to some extent I do agree with, but some of my students want to specialize in in pediatric care, they want to just work with kiddos, and so they can't be afraid of that. Now, the thing is, kids aren't just small adults, they're a complete custom case from the beginning. So when I decided to start working with kids, I just had to kind of put my big girl panties on and and feel confident about what I knew, and the rest I had to figure out. Of course, you can guess that your girl here takes you through all of that stuff, so it isn't a big deal. But you got to feel strong about your foundation, okay? So that is step number one to starting your business, is having that, okay? Number two is gonna be this structure. So this is going to be setting your business up legally, okay? So um, shameless plug, but I have a lawyer teach you how to do this inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy. But for those of you who are DIYing it, um, first you're gonna start with your name. Okay, so you want to make sure that your name is available. First, you're gonna check with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the USPTO. You go to their website, you do a search to see if the business name that you want is taken. Now, the interesting thing here, I don't want to get too far off into the weeds with this, but when you're doing a search, remember you have a myofunctional therapy business. Um, if you want it to be, gosh, what could I think of here? Um, Northern Alabama myofunctional therapy or something. So you go do a search at the US patent and trademark office, and you find that other businesses have that same name, Northern Alabama Cooling and Heating or Northern Alabama. You have to um understand that those are obviously not in your industry. So then you would be able to use that in most cases. Okay. Now I'm not your attorney, I'm not pretending to be your attorney. So if you have other questions, you would want to get with somebody who can answer that for you. But by and large, you can go look it up, see if it's available. So you start there, then you're gonna check with your state registry, like your secretary of state, to see if it that name in your state is taken. And then another good rule of thumb or good place to start is like go to somewhere like Goddy.com. If somebody has taken godaddy.com, they are planning to use it at some point. All right. Um, so once you have your name, then um your business structure. So for a lot of us, that's gonna be an LLC. For some people, they some of my students ask about setting up an S-corp. That's definitely going to be for your uh for your business advisor. I had an S-corp years ago. It was quite expensive to do the taxes. I missed the tax filing deadline, I got a huge fine. I mean, it was just like, oh my gosh. So if you're considering doing an S-corp or even a C Corp for that reason, you want to get with your accountant to make sure that there's a benefit of that. For me, there was no benefit of having that. I just did it willy-nilly because somebody said it was a good idea. And actually, I was paying more um in expenses and taxes than just having an LLC. Okay. The important thing with your LLC is to make sure that you are separating business and pleasure because that's what legally protects your business in an LLC, is because you can't be sued personally. So, you know, you don't lose your house and your car and your retirement, all of that kind of stuff, but you do have to, you know, follow rules. Um, next is going to be your domain for a future website. Now, don't get all worried about that just yet, but eventually you are gonna want to have a website. So um you want to buy it so that you have that domain. So you don't want to name your business and then find out that you can't get the domain or that somebody already owns it and that they're gonna sell it back to you. My friend, this is a market, okay? So uh one of the things that I teach inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy is when you're going to buy your domain to actually be ready to purchase it at the time. Don't just go browsing because a lot of times you go browsing and then somebody has purchased it. And funny enough, GoDaddy owns it, you know. So if you look for it and it's there or something close to it, you want to buy it. I personally uh worked with a dentist years ago who did her research, named her business, did everything, never bought her domain. And when she went back to buy it, she had to pay $12,000 to buy the domain because somebody else had purchased it after she searched for it. Okay, so it's a market. Uh okay, and then you're going to set up your bank account. So again, in the program, I teach you my exact financial system so that you get a paycheck. Okay, so that you also get a quarterly bonus or you pay down debt, you have money for your business overhead and your quarterly tax payment. So out of every dollar you earn, 100% isn't yours. So you're going to, you know, set up your checking account. I actually have you get four checking accounts. Do not let that get you overwhelmed. This is just a simple start, but that way you have it so you can get paid. Okay. So that was step two, my friend. There was a lot of pieces there, but that was for the structure. Okay. So far, your steps to building your myofunctional therapy business is one, feeling fantastic about your foundation, two, structure. Three is nail your niche. Okay. So this is your who. Um, so my trainer teaches me to micro, micro-niche. Okay, so you are going to be talking to a particular market segment, and then you're going to talk to a particular piece of that market segment, and then you're going to talk to some type of person inside that segment. Now, this is where a lot of businesses go wrong. And of course, I teach this a little bit differently. So, for example, if you're considering myofunctional therapy, okay, you that's your segment of the market. And then your segment of the myofunctional therapy market, so this is your micro, micro part, okay. So maybe that would be sleep. And then that particular person, which is going to be your niche, your ideal customer, might be tired women in their 40s. Okay, so that's the particular type of person. Or maybe you were gonna do um myofunctional therapy, of course, is your segment of the health market, and then um airway orthodontic focus, and then maybe your particular type of person might be children with bed wetting and behavior concerns. So it is really important that you know that you nail this, okay? You have to nail your niche because you can't just be everything to everybody. You guys want to be a big fish in a little pond. Um, it is so hard because as you're getting your training in malfunctional therapy, many of you just feel like if you cast the big net, you're gonna get lots of fish. And and it's just really you send a watered-down message, and and it's really important that you clarify your message so that it lands with your ideal person. Um, go look at other therapists, go see what they're saying. Are they speaking to everybody and struggling to get business? Or maybe you are already a therapist struggling to get business because you want everybody with a person a pulse. Okay, that's not what you want to do. The other thing is, is how can you make an offer? How can you have an irresistible offer for this person if you don't even know who it's for or what problem that you're solving? Okay, so then that kind of is a nice segue into step four of starting your malfunctional therapy business, and that is to create an irresistible offer. Now, this is not just about your prices, okay? It is about a full package. This is gonna be the whole container of how you're going to get the transformation for your human, for your ideal customer avatar. How many sessions is this going to be? How often are you gonna meet with them? How long are the sessions gonna be? Uh, how are they gonna contact you? Do this is where you're setting boundaries and expectations. What are your business hours? Are you answering emails 24-7? Can they text you? All of those things are going to be part of your package, your container. Um, I teach my students to create a UME, a unique myofunctional experience. Um, and you, in creating that UME and creating your irresistible offer, you make it so it's about an experience and the transformation for the person. Then when you do that, it becomes less commodity-like. They can't compare a pound of oranges to a pound of oranges. Okay. So there's less price shopping. Okay, so you want it to be about the experience because people can't even compare. And then the last thing when you're can uh creating your irresistible offer, my friend, I want you to think about are your prices sustainable? You deserve to get paid fairly for your expertise. And I think one of the first things that I end up doing when I am coaching with with um with business clients is I make them raise their prices. Some of them I make them double. Okay. So can your prices sustain your business? Now, outside of getting started or outside of doing, you know, some discounted clients to get started, overall we're talking getting your business, you know, beyond a startup. Okay, hopefully that makes sense. All right, so so far you have your foundation, you've got your business structure. So all of that stuff is set up. You've nailed your niche, okay. You know your who, you know specifically who you're creating that irresistible offer for. You've created it, and now, my friends, step number five is you got to sell it, okay? You have to get your first client. Um, this is this isn't so much about a revenue goal because so many people come out of their training and they're like, hey, I want to get, I want to earn six figures. Or even some of my students will be like, well, Carmen earned six figures her first year, so I should be able to do that. It's not so much about the revenue goal. What I want you, the reason I want you to hurry up and get that first paying client is so that you can test out your systems, you can test out your processes, you can see where you need to improve. You can see what it takes to not only get a client but to go through the steps and complete that client too. So selling your first client will give us information that then we will work on repeating, okay? What worked? Well, we want to keep doing more of that. What didn't work? We want to make changes, but also we don't want to keep making changes so that you're always just having decision fatigue and changing, changing, changing, because then you never gather data. So one of the biggest things that I teach my students is we want to make decisions not from our gut, but based on data. And that's a whole nother episode. Okay, so what do I want you to do with this information? What's your homework from this episode? First, let's recap. Okay, so one is that foundation. If you're just starting, ask yourself how do you feel about your foundation? If it is not strong, if it is not confident, then get your butt inside the ditch hygiene academy. At this point, you gotta if you feel like a rock star here, if you took a bomb diggity program and you feel great, then you are ready for step two, which is your structure. So this is your business setup. Get your name, um, get your LLC set up if that's what you're gonna do. Buy your domain, get your business account set up, all of that stuff, okay. Step three, nail down your who. I want you to know everything about your who. Okay, my who is Lola. I know everything about her. I actually have multiple who's because it just depends on what program we're talking about, but um, I know where she hangs out, what keeps her up at night, what words she's typing into Google. Okay. Um, when you know about your Lola or your Shelby or your Sarah or your Susie or your John, whoever it is, once you know all the details about that person, then you can create an irresistible offer. Because that way, then you know, when you know what's keeping Lola up at night and you know what she's losing sleep over and what words she's typing into Google, then you can solve her problem. Okay, so that's how you come up with that irresistible offer. So it's a no-brainer. She's raising her hand saying, Hey, I'm having trouble with sleep, and you're saying, Hey, I have micro, micro niche down to helping tired women in their 40s with sleep. You guys are a good match. And she's gonna say, How fast can I pay you, my friend? Okay, so that's what you want. Also, I will tell you when you create an irresistible offer, my friend, you have got to believe it. You have got to believe that the value that you're gonna bring to the table is so far beyond what they're paying for, because your attitude, your what's going on in your mindset, it's gonna be mirrored to your client. So if you say you price your package at $3,000, your irresistible offer, and you don't believe that anybody is willing to pay that, or you don't think you're good enough to get that, or you don't think you're worth it, they're gonna believe that too. Okay. So you create an irresistible offer, and you better believe it. And then step five is to sell your first client so you can see what it takes. All right, my friend, that is all I have for you today. I hope you loved today's episode, friend. I pray that it lifted you up, motivated you, and taught you something. If so, would you stop right now and go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review? And lastly, make sure you've joined the profitable myofunctional therapist Facebook community. Links to all the goodies can be found wherever you're listening to this podcast. That's it for now. Cheering you on, my friend, and we'll chat soon.